


Buy the Stars

by wilteddaisy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drug Abuse, Dubious Morality, Infidelity, M/M, Minor Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Pureblood Culture (Harry Potter), Sexual Content, Slytherin Sirius Black, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2019-11-15 14:12:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18074927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilteddaisy/pseuds/wilteddaisy
Summary: Sirius Black, respectable pureblood patriarch and heir to the Black family fortune, has a wife and three children at Hogwarts. Defence Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin wrestles with the aging wolf inside of him. When Black offers him a hand, Remus reluctantly takes it.





	Buy the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> _For the prompt:_  
>  **Prompt 228:** Sirius is a respectable pureblood wizard with wife, children and a large estate. Remus is his bit on the side.  
> THANK YOU to the lovely prompter for inspiring me SO MUCH that I wrote the entire first half of this in two days. It gets a bit dark.  
> This story assumes Harry “vanquished” Voldemort on the night of October 31, 1981 and James and Lily lived.  
> 

  _You bought a star in the sky tonight_  
_Because your life is dark and it needs some light_  
_You named it after me, but I’m not yours to keep_  
_Because you’ll never see, that the stars are free_

 _Oh we don’t own our heavens now_  
_We only own our hell_  
_And if you don’t know that by now_  
_Then you don’t know me that well_  

_All my life I’ve been so lonely_  
_All in the name of being holy_  
_Still, you’d like to think you know me_  
_You keep buyin’ stars_  
_And you could buy up all of the stars,_  
_But it wouldn’t change who you are_  
_You’re still living life in the dark_  
_It’s just who you are_  
_It’s just who you are_  

_\- Buy the Stars, Marina and the Diamonds_

*******

****Remus Lupin sorely wishes that the rectangular shape of his trunk in his pocket would morph into a bar of Honeydukes Best. But it won't, and the steam billowing from the engine coupled with the commotion on the platform —  tearful goodbyes of parents and their new first years, Weasleys taking head counts, upperclassmen shrugging off parents’ outward affection in favor of finding compartments on the Express to neck in with their girlfriends and boyfriends, as Remus’ godson had done just moments ago — means he can’t see a bloody thing, can’t navigate a safe path to the train without elbowing someone’s grandmother or trampling some pitiful kid’s fallen teddy bear. Every door to the train is occupied by dawdlers — weepy parents of first years who won’t let their children go, not even to let Professor Lupin squeeze past. He’s a rather tall man; it might be more than a bit of a squeeze.

As the steam clears in Remus’ vision, it becomes easy to distinguish the fey blond hair of Draco Malfoy. Draco, rather disinterestedly, holds the hand of his second cousin Adhara Black. They’re both sixth years. Adhara’s thick hair is magically woven into an elaborate crown. Remus is just near enough to hear it when she squawks indignantly as her younger sister’s coin purse splits and as many galleons as Remus makes in a year come jangling out onto the platform.

“Must you make as public of a scene as possible?” Adhara hisses, wrenching Draco’s hand as she gestures accusingly at her sister. “Could you be _any_ more Hufflepuff?”

“Do you think I planned this?” asks Mirzam Black shrilly as she kneels onto the platform, prompting her mother to close a hand around her arm, bring her to her feet and say, “Don’t get your hands dirty, darling.” Her father places a protective hand on her shoulder.

Remus smiles and waves his wand.

 _“Now, before you all leave, you should know your heads of houses have come to me with complaints of overindulgent use of the Full Body-Bind Curse outside the classroom. I may not have made it clear enough last time that while I encourage extracurricular readings, please reserve spell practice for class. There will be repercussions if you leave your friends paralysed in the dorms when they should be in class. My colleagues have assured me that you should all be familiar with_ Finite Incantatem _, but in case you weren’t, you now are — yes, Miss Clearwater, that’s correct, it’s the general counter-spell. Everyone repeat after me:_ Finite Incantatem _. Yes, very good. Now you have no excuse to leave your friends frozen in compromising positions, and I know it will be a lie when your claim against detention is not knowing the counter-spell. Alright, that’s all for today. Enjoy your weekends.” Remus bats a hand vaguely at the class of second years — Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. “Miss Black, would you come see me for just a moment, please?”_

_Mirzam Black tiptoes to Remus’ desk, books hugged to her chest, gray eyes encircled in round pools of white. “Sir?”_

_Remus squats before her. Twelve though she may be, she is still incredibly small for her age. Remus resolutely doesn’t think of inbreeding. He extends toward her a scroll of parchment — the essay on werewolves she’d turned in the week prior. “Miss Black, you know that I assigned ten inches on werewolves, yes?” She nods. “You gave me nearly twenty-four.”_

_She takes the scroll, purses her lips, hesitates a moment. “Yes, Professor, but — but I was the first to make it to the library for the assignment, so I was able to take out that new book on werewolves, the one Madam Pince only stocked last month, the one by Lily Potter? Harry Potter’s mum? And, Professor Lupin, it’s_ so _much better than all the dusty old ones, it’s not written in Scots_ and _Harry Potter’s mum isn’t a mean old werewolf hunter. She’s just a smart lady. It was really interesting! And easier to read. And it had some nice stories in it about werewolves, in that section at the end —” She simply breathes a moment, parchment crumpling between her fingers. “I suppose I got too invested, sir. I’ll write less next time.”_

_Remus steeples his fingers. A smile tugs at his lips. “No need to apologize. I appreciate your enthusiasm, I do, and I enjoyed your essay very much. Don’t let me stop you from reading up. But, for fairness’ sake in my grading, and for your future years — I’ve heard old Professor Snape is a stickler about inch limits after second year — I might try to be more concise. D’you know what I mean?”_

_Mirzam nods quickly. Her Hufflepuff tie, knotted into a bow around her neck, is technically a dress code violation. “Yes, Professor Lupin.”_

_“Good.” Remus chuckles and straightens up. His knee joints crack rather gloriously, and Mirzam must hear because she smiles at him sneakily. “I lose a few years off my life every time I squat like that, Miss Black,” he mutters. “Away with you, then. I do believe it’s lunchtime.”_

_“You’re not that old, Professor!” she assures him, scampering from the classroom._

The galleons dotting the platform rise to file neatly in through the tear in Mirzam’s coin purse, which knits itself back together once plump and full of coins again. The seam of the repair is visible, but it’ll hold. Remus uses the same spell on his own clothes.

Mirzam, weighing her intact purse in the palm of her hand wondrously, turns to face Remus, now a mere few steps from her and her family. “Professor Lupin!”

“Enjoy your summer, Miss Black?”

“We went to the south of France,” declares Mirzam.

It’s been a day and a half since the last full, so Remus, senses still heightened, doesn’t miss it when Adhara turns subtly to her mother and mutters, “He’s the Defence teacher who barely gave me an Acceptable last year.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing you didn’t deserve, Addie,” Mirzam quips.

“Hush, you two,” says Mr. Black, whose gaze Remus has managed to avoid.

“Professor, it’s a pleasure,” interjects Mrs. Black, who offers Remus her slack hand, as if he’s meant to kiss it rather than give it a hearty shake. “I’m always thrilled to meet other academics, being one myself.” Remus takes her hand, looks hastily toward Mr. Black. He nods at Remus, who then stoops to kiss her hand. Mr. Black’s eyes glint with the same ashiness as Mirzam’s. Remus isn’t sure he’s ever done that before; kissed a lady’s hand. In greeting, that is.

“Are you? Yes, a pleasure,” Remus agrees, voice faint.

“ _Mother_ ,” Adhara admonishes, flustered by the interaction, then shoves at Draco’s side. “Let’s get on the train. Come, Mirzam.”

Mirzam frowns. “What about Orion?”

“He’ll be in the prefects’ car by now.”

Mirzam waves frenetically at Remus just as he’s releasing her mother’s hand. “See you in class, Professor Lupin! Thanks for fixing my purse! Bye Mother! Bye Papa!”

Mrs. Black nods at Remus. “Our youngest speaks very highly of you, Professor.”

“One for three, then,” Remus jokes weakly. Mrs. Black’s taut smile is immovable. Mr. Black looks amused, twisting his walking stick between smooth, pale hands. Remus clears his throat. “I… I should be going, then. It was nice to meet you.” He boards the train. 

***

It takes Remus three Firewhiskys neat at the Hog’s Head on an October Friday night to take Aberforth’s public Floo and wind up in Knockturn Alley.

He knows what he wants, where to find it, that the apothecary’s basement will be buzzing this time of night but he’s willing to wait. The moon gapes at him from behind weedy, murky clouds, a single night from being whole. Albus has Snape concocting wolfsbane for Remus monthly and he wakes up with hardly a scratch, nothing like the pummeling he took for years as a kid. But Remus doesn’t know if it’s because he’s grown old or soft with the treatment or if the pain in the days leading up to the full has always been this debilitating. He surmises that it’s weakness; at Hogwarts he’d gritted his teeth against it and gone to class anyway. Or then it’s the preemptive apprehension — knowing what muscles will stretch and what bones will snap and that thick, coiled hair will pierce through his every pore — that has him so ill and loathsome. Albus gives him two days off a month, the day before and the day of, but today he’d only had morning Defence classes and the thought of Snape usurping them made him sick enough to show his weary face in the classroom for three straight hours. He’s lucky the full falls on a Saturday. He has Sunday to recover.

Remus wraps the open flaps of his threadbare coat around his body, shoulders past the standard dark figures of Knockturn. The steps to the cellar of Snakeroot and Vine Apothecarie groan under his weight and the only light in the musty space below is from a charmed flame smoking blackly on a reeking animal fat candle. The stench makes Remus’ skin crawl.

“Lupin,” croaks Sallow, a shrunken man behind a rotting desk, “haven’t got what you’re lookin’ for.”

Remus’ jaw tightens. “I have enough this time —”

“Don’t care,” says Sallow. “I don’t got any.”

Remus’ nostrils flare. He turns with the intention of leaving, but only reels about in a circle so he can eye Sallow again, the purple veins in his head, the mottled yellow of his only eye. “Do you know where I could —?”

“No.”

Remus storms out, up the steps. “ _Fuck_.” He kicks at the stone wall, shocks of pain ricocheting up his shin, digs his forehead into the hard graininess before he turns away and heads down the street. He really has no business here. If he did, he would know where else powdered Opaleye dragon scales were sold, not simply of the lone establishment he’d once become familiar with as a favor to Snape, visiting in the friendly daylight to pick up illicit potions ingredients. He stumbles into a grimy alley to lean up against the wall, tuck a cigarette between his lips, and conjure golden flames into the palm of his hand to light it. In the yellow glow, he finds he’s not alone and promptly extinguishes the flames, but his company casts a silent _Lumos_ and holds their unsettlingly serpentine wand inches from his cheek.

“Professor Lupin.”

Remus’ exhale is smoky and shuddering. “Mr. Black.”

The man smiles. “You may be the last person I thought I’d see in Knockturn.”

Remus lowers his cigarette. “I meant to be in and out, Mr. Black. I didn’t expect to see anyone tonight.”

“That was clever, your little trick with the flames,” mutters Black, gesturing lightly at Remus’ hand with ringed fingers.

“It’s really just —”

“In and out, hm? Meeting someone? Picking something up?” Black casts down his wand as if to examine Remus’ clothing. He’ll be disappointed by worn tweed and beige trousers. “Or some _one_?”

“Certainly not,” breathes Remus. “Some _thing_. Something I couldn’t find, actually, so excuse me but I should be on my way —”

Shouldering past Black proves to be difficult. His wand digs into Remus’ sternum. Both their faces light up in _Lumos_ white. Black’s face is the color of the moon, but smoothed over, hardly cratered. His nose is a bit too narrow to classify him as classically handsome, his lips too full, but beautiful he is. Terrifying, too. “I know what you were looking for,” says Black, almost solemnly.

Remus wraps fingers around Black’s wand. “Respectfully, sir, I don’t think —”

“Respectfully, Professor, Antipodean Opaleyes are endangered.” Black watches Remus’ fingers on his wand, as if daring him to grip it. “The scale supply has been exceptionally low this month. Everyone wants to process them, and yet, no one seems to have scales to process.”

Remus’ heart rams against his ribs. His pulse thrums in his toes, in his throat. “Mr. Black,” he murmurs. “I hope you know that I — I would _never_ deign to use on Hogwarts grounds, or anywhere near the students, _your children_ , for that matter. And my —”

“Your monthly affliction.” Black half-chuckles. “I’m aware.”

Remus’ skin goes cold. He drops his voice. “I have it under control. Professor Snape brews wolfsbane monthly.”

“I’m not concerned. But I… might be able to help you.”

Remus shakes his head minutely. He doesn’t like where this is going. “No need, I should really —”

Black laughs again. “Come with me.” His grip is iron on Remus’ arm, _silver_ the way it sears through his clothes, down to his skin. The rings, they just might be. Remus would apparate away, but that would mean taking Black with him. His cigarette falls into a puddle. Black doesn’t go far; he shoves through a rickety door into what appears to only be a grimy pub, hauls Remus toward the fireplace. He urges him into the green flames. Remus nearly knocks his head on the brick mantle. “Sirius Black’s study, Black Manor, Alderley Edge,” says Black, proffering the old pint glass filled with Floo powder. “ _Lupin_ , did you hear?” He repeats the location sternly. Remus considers pulling something quick, apparating just before the Floo network can sweep him away, but he has three drinks in him and didn’t eat dinner and might leave half himself behind should he try. So he curls his fingers into the pungent powder and Floos to Black Manor.

Remus is brushing soot from his jacket when he realizes he perhaps shouldn’t. The study is dark; thick, velvety curtains drawn, but the rug below his feet is light-colored and intricate. The ceiling is paneled, vaulted dimensions shadowed by the flickering flames on the chandelier. The walls are warm, rich wood, the furniture screams _elf-made_ , all buttery leathers and hand carvings. The fireplace roars and Black steps out, strides silently and imperiously across the room.

“Mr. Black,” murmurs Remus. He doesn’t want to stand. Rolling his shoulders feels like plucking at strings connected to his brain, sparking sizzling pain at his every synapse. “Forgive me, but —”

“Have some patience, Professor.” Black’s back is to him. He hunches over a colossal desk, the epicenter of the room. “Though that might be a tall order, given the lunar phase. Sit down. Have a drink.” A wave of Black’s wand sends a pair of crystal glasses and a whisky decanter levitating toward the table nearest Remus. Feeling out of control, Remus sits and takes a glass once it’s filled.

He doesn’t drink it. His eyes are shut. Even through walls, windows, drapes, the moon has her claws in him. It unnerves Remus to hear Mr. Black’s soft footsteps approach.

“Your fire trick, Professor,” Black demands evenly. Remus opens his eyes to find Black seated on the table before Remus, precariously close to the second whisky glass. The room is brighter — Black’s put fires in the sconces — and Remus can see all of him, the arches of his eyebrows and the taper of his pretty chin and the raven layers of his sleek hair. All his children have their mother’s Afro hair texture, but in the same midnight black shade as his.

Black holds an antique spoon. Remus reckons it would give him welts should he touch it. In its bowl, water sparkles with a heap of half-floating, iridescent powder. Opaleye scales, ground up. Remus turns his palm over slowly, ignites a flame, and Black leaves the spoon to hover above it. Remus swallows. Black chuckles.

“I usually —,” utters Remus. Then he starts over. “This is the muggle way.”

“A dear few treasures, Professor Lupin, are better the muggle way.” Black kneels on the floor, tugs Remus’ coat off his left shoulder to free his arm without jarring the fire in his right palm. “Don’t tell my wife I said so.”

Remus’ pulse rabbits in his throat as Black observes his worn shirt. “May I?” asks Black, undoing the topmost button, and Remus chokes as he nods. Black’s lips curl up. “A dear few indeed.” Black nods at the spoon, where the powdered Opaleye scales are thickening, bubbling in the boiling water. “I pity the muggles and their dope, don’t you, Professor?” Remus’ stomach twitches when Black’s fingers carelessly brush his skin. He manually frees Remus’ left arm, too. “Sanitation is rather difficult.” The chair creaks under Black’s weight as he sits on the arm of it. Remus thinks his pulse might be exacerbating the headache blaring between his ears. “And muggle dragon… it ruins lives.” Remus feels his spine melt into the leather as Black handles his arm, presses at his skin in search of puffy veins. He smells heady, or then Remus is projecting. Or he’s crawling out of his skin with pain and arousal. “Opaleye scales… I suppose they could do the same. Similarly addictive when injected. But at least they don’t leave you impotent, hm?” Black chuckles again. Remus smothers his fire, eyes his bare arm in Black’s hands. He wonders if his heart’s visible, too, pounding at the left half of his exposed chest.

“I have money,” Remus says unsteadily.

Black laughs.

“I know you don’t need it,” Remus argues astringently. “I’m not — _daft_.”

Black continues to chuckle. He produces a syringe. Murmurs a wandless spell as he sweeps his hand over it. Remus stares, enraptured.

“Where’s your wife?” asks Remus.

“She teaches at the magical branch of Imperial. Lives in London for the academic year.”

“What does she teach?”

Black’s eyes flash to Remus. He smirks and flicks the syringe. “Wizarding Genealogy.”

“Fucking pureblood wankstains,” whispers Remus. He isn’t even high yet.

Black hums noncommittally. “Your pain, Professor, on a scale of one to ten.”

“Solid seven.”

Black leaves the syringe, filled with swirling dragon scales, to levitate as he unties his neckerchief, secures it around Remus’ arm. “And you want this from me.”

Remus nods, but says, “How did you know about my…” His cheeks are hot. “Monthly affliction.”

“We were in school together, Professor Lupin. Same year. You know this. And Severus Snape likes to run his mouth when he’s feeling vulnerable or inferior.” Black thumbs at his skin. “You want this. You want this from me, Professor?”

“Yes,” whispers Remus. The needle pricks his skin. Seconds tick by, and lightness washes over him.

“I know a bit about you, Professor Lupin.” Remus ascends but doesn’t move. Black is right where he’s been this whole time, as is Remus, in the chair. But there’s water, warm water, licking over his body like waves and numbing his muscles into nonexistence. “I have a cousin. She’s my cousin’s daughter, to be exact. I know you’ve been seeing her.”

Remus’ eyes flutter. “What?”

“Nymphadora.”

Remus chokes on the back of his tongue. “Dora’s your cousin?”

“She’s young. You’ve been at the school a while, haven’t you? Nymphadora graduated the year before Orion started, if I’m correct.” Remus watches through the fringe of his eyelashes as Black’s syringe sucks tarry Opaleye scales from the spoon. Black waves his nimble magicking fingers, secures the neckerchief to his own arm. He isn’t half-nude. He’s just rolled up his shirt. Merlin, it’s a pity. “She’s… something else. Young still. Spirited.” Black’s eyes move to Remus. “Pretty.”

“I taught her,” breathes Remus, as if in confession.

“That you did.” Black clears his throat. All Remus sees is the flow of his hair over the chair’s arm as he sits down on the floor, leans into the side of the leather armchair. “See you in the morning, Professor Lupin.”

***

Remus startles in waking. He registers sunlight warming his face. It’s the dawn before the full moon, but he feels nothing, scales glimmering in his blood.

“Minty, get the professor some water. And when he wakes, be sure to give him — oh.” Black steps into Remus’ bleary vision. “Good morning, Professor.” The thick curtains are open. Black sits on table where he’d been the night before with his floating silver spoon and Opaleye dragon scale dust.

“Mr. Black,” Remus breathes, out of sorts, embarrassed. Merlin, he’s still half-indecent — he shrugs into his shirt, fumbles with the buttons. A plump house-elf zaps into being at Remus’ left and holds out a glass of water for him to take.

“Say hello to Minty, Professor,” says Black.

Remus drinks the water too fast, coughs half of it up. “Hello, Minty,” he rasps.

“I named her after my late mother-in-law,” explains Black. “Araminta was —”

Remus swipes at his chin. “Not Araminta Meliflua, muggle-hunting bill Araminta?”

Black shrugs. “I must be going.” Black pushes into Remus’ other hand a stoppered bottle. “For your full moon needs, Professor Lupin, until the Antipodean Opaleyes decide to mate.”

Remus closes his fingers around the cold glass. Black is dressed sharp, robes modernly cut in a sophisticated gray. He sweeps out of the room, leaving Remus with Minty. Remus has to try to stand twice; his limbs need a reminder of their primary function, and he thinks it’s been hours since he’s moved an inch. That’s what Opaleye scales do to a man. His mouth feels cottony and dirty and he thanks the house-elf, tucks the bottle into his pocket, Floos back to Hogsmeade.

Remus ventures to guess the bottle has two or three large doses. Three fulls without pain. Or it would be, but he doesn’t make it to the next full before he takes it again. He doesn’t possess the muggle medical paraphernalia of Black, so he snorts it. Misses the following weekend’s Gryffindor-Slytherin match while cooped up in his quarters. Breakfast on Monday, Snape sneeringly asks if he’s _feeling well? Wasn’t your_ illness _due to_ _pass a week ago? Did you even_ take _the potion?_ which is disconcerting. Nights after class that he’s alone, without essays to mark or lessons to plan or Boggarts to banish from dungeon dormitories, he thinks of Opaleye, of Black, feels his eyes twitch toward his door, but there’s no quick way out of the castle and he really just _shouldn’t_ , he’s not even in the same fierce pain, he has classes to teach and a head that is his own responsibility to keep clear. Sleeping draughts get him to the morning. Gryffindor won the match he missed. Harry and Ginny Weasley make a dream team, apparently. Whispers in the halls tell him they’re dating. Remus feels guilty, though he doubts Harry noticed his absence. Guilty also for being clueless, not keeping up with his godson’s life. And he would make it up to Harry, sit down and chat with him sometime, but Lily is always warning him that as a professor it’s important to not play favorites, especially not with Harry. And Harry is busy, seems happy, does alright enough in Defence that Remus doesn’t have to hound him down for remedial lessons.

Snape smugly instructs his classes when the beaver moon falls mid-week. Remus makes the discovery that taking sleeping draughts when he doesn’t need the sleep leads to spending hours in a jarring state of sleep paralysis.

Remus and Peter spend Christmas Eve at the Potters’ in Godric’s Hollow. Ginny Weasley is there, too. As Lily casts a muffling charm over the door between the kitchen and the living room and James hands Remus a second refill of mulled wine, Peter says, squinting through said door, “You _must_ think it’s weird. The parallel.” Ginny and Harry sit on the sofa near the Christmas tree, touching at the hips.

“He inherited my taste,” murmurs James, smirking.

“James, that’s creepy,” says Lily.

“Maybe this is how every generation of Potters will be from now on,” Peter muses. “An only child, ever the carbon copy of his father, who falls in love with a redhead too good for him.” Lily laughs like silver bells.

Remus smiles into his warm wine. “Sounds like a curse.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that arrangement,” James puts in.

“I’m hoping for more than one grandchild, actually,” Lily says.

“Careful what you wish for with Weasley fertility,” Remus mutters as Harry and Ginny come through the door, hand in hand.

“I know you’re talking about us,” says Harry with narrowed eyes.

James unties the apron from his waist. “Why would we do that? You two are boring. We’ve been on Pete’s sizzling love life for an hour now. Curry’s almost ready, though, so don’t go anywhere.”

Later, Remus pushes a yellow curry-soaked potato across his plate. It could be the mulled wine going to his head or the silence that settled over the table once everyone dug in that has Remus asking, “Do you know anything about the kids Black, Harry?”

Ginny is quick to wipe her mouth with her napkin and smile wryly. “Gossiping about your students, Professor?”

“Merely curious.” Remus smiles faintly, too. “The youngest has been top of my class all her three years.”

“The Hufflepuff? The really little one? Wossname — Mirzam?” says Harry, ladling more curry onto his plate. “She’s in SPEW with Hermione. Seems normal, but it feels weird judging a thirteen-year old.” Remus observes him, chin pinched between his fingers.

Ginny grins. “Harry rather likes Orion Black.”

“Don’t say it like that. It’s for good reason,” scoffs Harry. “Stole Slytherin prefect right out from under Malfoy’s nose last year. If _Malfoy_ were prefect, he would’ve found a way to lose Gryffindor points every time I _breathed_.”

“If he’s anything like his slimy old man, he’d find a way to manipulate you into losing your own points,” James says.

“Lucius Malfoy slander at the dinner table,” sighs Peter. “It’s just like old times.”

Harry cringes. “At least Draco’s parents aren’t _cousins_. I don’t know how Malfoy does it, keeps a straight face walking ‘round Hogwarts holding hands with Addie Black like they aren’t related.”

“Get used to it, son. You may have been the saviour of our world as we know it —”

“Dad, _shut_ up.”

“— but just because you offed Voldemort without trying doesn’t mean all his loony supporters with their nasty ways disappeared. Their casualties weren’t high. If they aren’t in Azkaban now, they’ve been breeding for fifteen years, planting seeds of purebloodism in their poor ickle spawn. Actually, Sirius Black was one of the few who could compete with your mum’s marks back in school. He was in Slughorn’s brown-noser club with you, wasn’t he, Lil? Anyhow, then he went off and married his second cousin and his father became a massive financial backer to the Death Eater cause. I _keep_ waiting for one of their kin to break from the herd, not grow up to be a bigoted cousin-fucker —”

“Enough of the incest talk, please. I don’t want it at my dinner table,” Lily says into her goblet-like wine glass.

“Less about the Blacks, then, more about… how one of our inaugural pranks of second year was turning Lucius Malfoy’s hair to snakes? Talk about advanced magic for that age. He was fitter as Medusa, I’ve always thought.”

“Dad, not again.”

Drifting from the discussion, Lily nudges her elbow into Remus’ side. “Look what you’ve done to our civil Christmas Eve dinner conversation,” she murmurs.

“I’m the reason there’s any conversation at all.” Remus pokes at a pea with the prongs of his fork.

Lily smiles, sighs so it fogs up her glass. “How was your last —” Her lips purse, eyes dart to Ginny. Remus is fairly sure she knows anyway. “Chiropractor’s visit?”

Remus’ eyes crinkle with amusement. “Good.” It’s been less of a topic they discuss since he started at Hogwarts as a professor, started on wolfsbane. He rubs a hand across his eyes. _Spent the entire day prior awake. Couldn’t move my body. Tried to. Couldn’t feel the aches, at least._ “Just fine.”

***

The air of Knockturn Alley is stinking and noxious with the vapor of whatever fills its gutters — piss, shit, spoilt potions ingredients, rotting food. Remus hikes up the collar on his coat and keeps his arms close to his body as he weaves between pedestrians, ignores the woman peddling tarnished silver from the wet cobblestone ground.

He peers through the windows and open doors of the taverns he passes, searching for one that jogs his memory. All he remembers of the pub from that October night, though, is that it’d been unremarkable. Shabby. Not a place a Black would frequent anyway. He must spend a full half hour walking once up the street and back down, but nothing strikes him. Remus feels like a fool, flustered by the effort and the ill-intentioned gazes of passersby. It’s a Friday night and he would return to the Leaky to Floo back to Hogsmeade but that would mean inevitably crossing paths with people he knows, friendly well-meaning people who’d already greeted him in passing through the first time. He lets his feet guide him into the nearest tavern, where he sags onto the stool at the very corner of the bar and orders a whisky from the ogre-like barkeep. There’s a taxidermied turkey on the wall but the plaque under it claims it to be a phoenix. Remus smirks to himself and the barkeep shoots him a look. He studies the bar under his fingers instead, scrapes bitten nails along carvings of symbols. He’s near-sure that one, which condensation from recent pints paints shiny and wet, is a Middle-Aged runic equivalent of _kill dirty blood_.

Remus has his head down against the bar, against the ugly inscription, turning his second glass between his fingers when someone takes the seat beside his own. He can sense it, if only because the dim light from the wax-dripping chandelier is blocked by a figure and the cushion on the adjacent seat wheezes under their weight.

“Green fairy.”

The barkeep grunts in acknowledgment. Fingers drum against the wood of the bar somewhere close to Remus’ elbow. He takes a shuddering breath as he sits up, and his eyes scan all of Black’s profile before he trains them resolutely on his whisky.

“You’re not even going to say hello?” chuckles Black. There’s a violently green slosh of absinthe in the small glass before him, and as Black flicks his wand, the sugar cube levitating above dissolves into a watery slush that drips into the glass.

Remus clears his throat. “I didn’t —”

“I didn’t expect to see you, either, Professor.” Black traces his fingertip along the lip of the glass. “December’s full moon was only last week, was it not?” Remus chews his nonexistent thumbnail as Black’s eyes rake over him. “Are you still feeling its effects? I suppose you would’ve used up the scales by now.”

Remus knocks back the rest of his whisky, coughs. “I didn’t get to properly thank you,” he says, though he thinks the Opaleye scales did him more bad than good, even if the good was numbingly extraordinary.

“It was merely an act of charity.”

Remus grits his teeth. “Of course.”

“My daughter, she talked my ear off all holiday about how you’re out to get her, Professor,” murmurs Black. He sips at his absinthe. “She said I was to owl you, but isn’t this convenient?”

Remus props his elbows on the bar, hiccups into the shoulder further from Black. “Very,” he mutters. As he shifts his legs, his knee bumps the side of Black’s leg. Remus flinches away like he’s been burned. “This is, I’m assuming this is Adhara we’re talking about. She’s… I’m sure she has great potential… lying dormant… somewhere. But she doesn’t put effort into her assignments. I’m concerned for her OWL. She copied her last essay off Draco Malfoy’s.”

“What makes you so sure Draco Malfoy didn’t copy off my daughter?”

Remus peers at Black from the corner of his eye. To his surprise, Black is smirking. Remus swallows. “I’d rather not discuss my students here.”

“As you wish.”

Remus’ skin itches. The bar is empty — the patrons are clustered in booths along the furthest wall — and yet Black is directly beside him. “I need to… toilet. Use the… yeah.” He clambers off his stool.

“In the back, turn left at the wall of eyeballs,” says Black without taking his eyes off Remus.

“Thanks.”

In the dilapidated stall, Remus casts a cleaning charm on the yellowing toilet seat and squats down without taking off his pants, his face in his hands. Shamefully, his hand slinks down to squeeze between his legs. His trousers are tight enough that it shouldn’t be noticeable, and the light in the tavern is dreadful. He needs to get out now. He’d come to Knockturn Alley for a reason, to find Black, scrape more scales off him, but he hadn’t expected it to come to fruition, to see him at all. And he needs to get out. Remus rises from the toilet and flushes with the toe of his shoe, and when he walks out Black is standing at the sinks, pale hands pressed to the counter. There are two sinks and Remus takes the other, dips his hands under water that comes out scalding, dries them with a whispered charm. Black watches him through the broken mirror, the one that looks like it’s taken a fist to it, and Remus only notices when he looks up.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” says Black slowly, “bringing up my daughter.”

Remus shakes his head. “You didn’t.”

“She needs to get her act together. Realize the Malfoys don’t care about the size of her dowry. They won’t marry off Draco for love, but they’re new age purebloods. Intrafamilial marriage isn’t as important to them. If they learn to see her in a poor light… Draco has other options. Options that will fortify their gene pool… for health, supposedly.”

Remus fights a scowl, stares at the mould growing on the sink. “And it’s important to you? Marrying your own brood?”

Black chuckles, close-lipped. “I’m finding that I like to watch you the more I talk, Professor. You’re never so… demonstrative. Your half-blood half-breed reactions amuse me.”

Out of instinct, Remus glances at the toilet door, at the empty gaps under the stalls. “Please stop,” he mutters.

“On the contrary.” Black smirks. “You don’t spend much time here, do you, Lupin? Or — you haven’t since your spying stint for Dumbledore back in the day. You should know your kind are welcome down in Knockturn. While he still… while he still lived, Fenrir Greyback was _revered_ —”

“Shut the fuck up,” hisses Remus, pinning Black to the wall by his throat. His head thuds against the wood, and Remus sees it unhinge his eyes for only a moment. “Don’t say that name.”

Black doesn’t defend himself. His arms rest lank against his sides, and he regards Remus with shadowed eyes. “Why not?” he whispers. “You killed him, yes? Not long before the Potters were attacked.” Black’s head tilts above Remus’ grasp on his neck. Remus hears the rasp of his inhale, loosens his hands on his throat. “I remember being impressed that there was… beast in you after all. At school all you did was hurt yourself. Play with your little animal friends.”

Remus’ thumb rests inadvertently against Black’s rocketing pulse. His face is deceptively calm. Remus shifts on his feet. “I wish I hadn’t killed him so soon,” he whispers.

The corner of Black’s mouth lifts. “You wish he’d suffered more,” says Black.

Remus nods. He leans over Black, who lays his head back against the wall. The silken waves of his hair brush the wiry hairs on Remus’ knuckles, and his eyelashes are long, thick at the roots and tapering to dark tips. His lips… Remus kisses them. Black’s hands come to life, wrap around the sturdy bones at Remus’ wrists. He sees it, hears it as Black’s lips part again in anticipation, in invitation, so Remus’ tongue dips past them, tastes the perfume of the absinthe on his tongue. Remus feels a rush of air against his cheek as Black breathes out his nose, and he steps closer, hot in the head, to corner him against the wall.

No one enters the toilet. Black’s fingers trace the scars on the backs of Remus’ forearms. Remus is lost, nowhere near drunk but getting drunker on the soft notes of desperation Black makes that sound so strange flowing from the back of his throat.

And then Black mumbles, “Come home with me,” and Remus jolts backward.

“What?” he whispers, blinking too many times. “No.”

“I don’t like that answer, Professor,” says Black, eyeing him head to toe.

“No,” Remus says firmly. “You have a —” He grimaces. “Do you ask this of every man you woo? Of every _dirty-blooded_ charity case you get around your finger?”

Black’s eyes are icy. “No. I don’t.” He hardly spares Remus a glance before he turns and strides acerbically from the toilets.

The vicissitude has the pit of Remus’ stomach feeling like lead. For a moment he’s grateful for his common sense. Black is a married man with fucked up ideals, father to several of Remus’ students. And then he gets a look at his kiss-pink lips in the mirror and nearly shatters the second mirror to match its twin.

There’s no sign of Black in the tavern when Remus steps out of the restroom. With a handful of Floo powder, he stands in the fireplace for several moments, mulling over his destination, wondering if he’s got it wrong, if it sounds wrong on his tongue and he’ll go reeling through some stranger’s grate when he throws the powder down. “Sirius Black’s study, Black Manor, Alderley Edge.”

The study is no different than when he’d seen it last. The room is eerily silent. Remus’ footsteps creak on the old floor, his palms go clammy. The last thing he wants is to wander Black Manor while no one is home, or, perhaps worse, while only Black’s wife is home, but he’d told Remus she stays in London for the academic year, hadn’t he?

A soft, yellow glow outlines one of the bookcases nearest to Black’s desk. Remus moves closer to inspect. He wonders, then, if Black Manor only recently came into wizarding hands, as it’s one of those kitschy secret muggle doors, disguised as a bookcase. Remus pries at its exposed edge carefully.

Black undresses in the room beyond. Between unlaces of his complex garb, he spends moments staring at the upward-facing palm of his hand, fingers clenching in C-shapes, whispering what Remus assumes is a spell. Black’s body is wan and lithe but with the soft edges of a privileged lifestyle and lines of light muscle that taper him in at the middle and appear when he flexes his arm. His arse is full and perfect. The floor protests under Remus’ feet just as Black is charming his clothes to sort themselves into his wardrobe.

Black looks over his shoulder at Remus, then bends to open his nightstand. “Take it and leave,” Black snaps as he throws at Remus a bottle identical to the one he received the last time. Remus catches it inches from his face, stares at the glitter of the powder through the translucent blue glass. A smaller dose. He sets it down on the chest of drawers by the door.

Black lifts himself to sit on the edge of his bed. It’s high enough that his legs dangle. Remus traipses to him, cups his hand, ignites the orange flame. Black watches, mesmerized, the light of it a dancing orb against the black of each of his eyes. “Is this what you were trying to do?” murmurs Remus.

“What’s the incantation?” demands Black, breaking from his trance.

“There isn’t one.”

Black leans back against his hands. He’s bare all over, yet Remus doesn’t look anywhere but the flame in his hand.

“So don’t… don’t try to cast _Incendio_. You’ll just burn your hand,” he continues, voice even. Through the blurriness of bent light rays above his fire, Remus sees Black scoot back on the bed. Part his legs and spread them until he has a good enough footing on the sheets to keep them that way. Remus’ flame dies unconsciously. Black descends to his elbows, hair brushing his swoops of collarbone. His cock is pink, twitching with interest against the inside of his thigh.

Remus feels he couldn’t possibly be more maladroit as he frees himself from his coat. His belt buckle causes him enough trouble that once he gets it open he only shucks his trousers and pants down to his knees as he crawls over Black’s prone body. His mind goes blank for what feels like ages but is hardly anything and he mutters the words to lubricate his hand, his cock, the inside of Black; he sees the shivers on Black’s skin as the magic hums through him. By now Black’s dick is heavy and swollen and Remus wants it in his mouth but his own dick his already wet and Black has his arms around his shoulders, trapping him in place. So he grasps himself, presses into Black’s tight, tight hole without grace, with greed, and Black makes a distressed noise like _Augh_. Remus holds Black down against the mattress by his shoulders and fucks him like an animal, like a _half-blood half-breed_ , and all the while Black’s head is thrown back, dark brows scrunched with feeling, dark hair in swirls on the white sheets. The old bed creaks perilously and Black mewls at an octave not unlike Dora and comes untouched alone on Remus fucking him.

“Lupin, no,” grunts Black through the drowsiness in his eyes when Remus goes to pull out, so he cups him by his arse, buries himself back inside even as Black’s erection flags. Remus’ forehead rests against the pulse in Black’s neck as he releases inside him. Black pulls him back by the hair to look him in his eyes as he rides it out, soft thighs brushing Remus’ hips. Black kisses him once, then relaxes into the sheets, studying Remus like a specimen, hands as his tools; pulling at the wilted, sweaty curls on the top of his head, squeezing his deltoid through his shirt.

Remus only pulls out when Black’s eyes have been closed for minutes. The lovely line of Black’s nose wrinkles as he does, and he pushes at Remus’ chest as if to say _If you’re going to go, then go like you mean it_ , but perhaps Remus oughtn’t put words into Black’s mouth because he really hasn’t a clue what he’s thinking. Remus sits on the mattress, unabashedly watching the come dribble from Black’s spent arse. Should he ever afford the expense of a pensieve, he knows what he’d relive.

“Don’t forget the Opaleye, Professor,” murmurs Black once Remus has tucked himself into his trousers and slipped into his coat.

Remus pockets it. He Floos to the Leaky, heads out into muggle London. The chemists are always open late with their blinding white lights glaring through gleaming clean window panes. He has just enough paper money to cover a syringe. When he returns to Hogsmeade, it’s past one in the morning, and he goes straight to the shack though the transformation isn’t for three weeks. He doesn’t wake up until the next evening, neither groggy nor paralysed but numb.

***

Late February, Dora owls him that she wants to have him over for dinner the upcoming Saturday. She’s spent months undercover in Leeds — three, Remus thinks — on a case of suspected money laundering by one of the few wizarding casinos in England. He accepts her invitation as not to spend his night twiddling his thumbs in the castle or, Merlin forbid, wandering out to Knockturn Alley.

Dora drops a heavy steak onto his plate, just a touch from rare. Warmed, if anything. Her own is significantly more cooked. Her hair is a pleasing shade of lilac and she’s in joggers that hang low on her narrow hips. Remus smiles at her appraisingly, if a little tiredly, as she flicks her wand to bring the bottle of wine to life and dribble hearty and red into his glass. “It was a bust, won’t bore your ears off with the details,” she says. “But I’ve never been happier to just come back and sit on my arse and do _fuck all_ for hours after a nine to five.” Remus cuts into his steak, watches it bleed. Dora talks around her mouthful. “Good thing was that Moody was there with us and I could show off, impress him. Think I used two dozen different disguises. And it must’ve _worked_ ‘cos he’s given me an underling, a little trainee whose job it is to be scared of me.” Her eyebrows wiggle as she smiles, and Remus mirrors it, endeared.

“If it’s scary you want to be, you’ll need to work a bit harder,” murmurs Remus.

“Excuse you —”

“Maybe when you stub your toe and swear like a selkie for all of two minutes.”

“Don’t talk to me about swearing, Remus.” She cocks a purple brow at him. “And I can be scary.” As the smooth skin on her cheeks begins to bubble, Remus groans and hides his face.

“That’s quite enough, Dora. Don’t — _don’t_ you dare break out the Moody impression.”

“See?” When he uncovers his eyes, she’s very much herself. “Look at you. Scared out of your fucking wits.”

Food gone, bottle empty, and two orgasms later, Remus is wiping the second of them off his chin with the back of his hand. He lets Dora’s soft legs down and rolls onto his back in her bed, and there’s a hollow thump as she knocks her hand against his chest. “I forgot to ask how you’re doing.” He loves her voice, and not just in the moment — it’s always low, a bit husky.

Remus subconsciously scratches at the inside of his elbow. “It’s quite alright.” He smiles a bit. “We got busy.”

“How are you?”

He breathes out, runs his tongue over his teeth. Dora begins to say, “It’s not that hard a question, Remus,” when he blurts, “I didn’t realise you were related to the Blacks.”

She props herself up on her side. He feels the weight of her breast press into his shoulder. “Where did that come from?”

Remus can only shrug, watch the ceiling.

Dora remains in obstinate silence until she falls onto her back again. “Mum was a Black. Keyword being _was_. She got disowned for marrying Dad, his being a muggle and all.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve only gone out three times, Remus, and Hogwarts never had the meet-the-parents culture muggle schools do. It’s not my preferred topic of conversation. They’re barking, the Blacks. Fucking load of berks. Every single one of them. I haven’t met them except by happenstance, and I don’t plan on doing it again. They’re not my family.” She pauses. “I like to think if they knew me, they’d hate me.”

When Remus says nothing, she continues, gesticulating in the air with her hand. “Just — imagine if Mum had married some blood relative. I’d probably be in line to marry one of Sirius Black’s kids. The oldest one. The boy.”

“You wouldn’t be you if that were the case.” Remus’ hand finds her delicate fingers, weaves his own absently between them. He peers at her through the dark, a sneaky smile coming to his face. “Your mother was a Black. That would make… Draco Malfoy…”

Dora clamps a hand over his mouth, tries to look malicious as she rolls onto his lap and weighs him down. “Yes, the little blond prat is my cousin. We don’t speak of it,” she hisses. Even in the dark, her face betrays a grin.

“That is… _so_ unfortunate,” Remus murmurs as he guides her hand away. “Poor Draco.”

She smacks him across the cheek so hard the sound echoes in the room. They both gape, Dora staring at her palm in shock. Remus is the first to dissolve into laughter. Dora apologizes by putting her fingers in him.

***

Black attends the Ravenclaw-Slytherin Quidditch match in March. Remus knows Black is on the Board of Governors for the school and that the Board has an open invitation to all Inter-House matches, but of the twelve wizards on the Board, Remus thinks it’s been years since he’s been at the same match as any of them.

Black’s attendance seems less like an anomaly, however, because Flitwick is abuzz about recruiters from the British and Irish Quidditch League at the game, present to spectate the upperclassmen. Orion Black, sixth year Chaser, is one of the few they’re out to see, along with Ravenclaw’s Chang siblings and a burly Beater half a head taller than Remus.

Remus recalls seeing from a distance as Black filed into the pitch while Remus was ushering students along from the castle, but once seated in the teachers’ section, he can’t find him until Madam Hooch throws the Quaffle.

“I suppose if my son were to pursue a professional career in _sports_ , it would be rather shameful if he were to be usurped by, say, the Chudley Cannons. If he’s going to petition that to me, he’d better come forward with a contract for the Montrose Magpies. Or Puddlemere United.”

Remus stares at the green of the pitch. Fingers curling into his knees, a backward glance reveals Black seated in the row behind him, his knee level with Remus’ elbow. He’s in luxurious, structured pinstripe robes. Remus evades his eyes, turns to face forward. “Of course,” he mutters, “because what’s a career without fame and prestige?”

Black huffs out a laugh. “My son doesn’t need a career. He’s heir to the family fortune. But should he choose to have one, like my wife, it shouldn’t be an embarrassment to the family.”

Remus snorts. He looks at his lap. He’s never been able to keep track of the balls, anyway, least of all the Snitch. “Should I ever have a child, they could become a Zonko’s franchisee for all I care.” Remus picks at his nails. “In fact, that might be brill —”

“A disgrace to the name of Lupin pales beside a disgrace to the name of Black.”

Remus doesn’t have any alcohol in him to spur him into a rage. He laughs helplessly. As of Da’s death five years ago, the name of Lupin lies solely with Remus. “Oh, you’re not wrong, Mr. Black.”

Ravenclaw wins, if only because the Slytherin keeper has an off-day, but Orion puts on a good show. Remus slips out of the teachers’ section to help with the crowd control of many an overexcited first year. He hopes, oddly, that Orion receives the praise he deserves for his performance.

Remus hopes to escape to his office to mark a stack of first year assignments on ghosts — the spelling and grammar mistakes take maximal concentration to wade through and decipher, but as soon as he enters his classroom, footsteps follow him in. The door clicks shut.

“Slytherin and Gryffindor had Defence together in seventh year.” Black appears in his peripheral vision. “You sat —”

“I’ll give you fifty galleons you don’t need if you remember correctly,” says Remus, swiveling on his heel to look at Black.

Black smirks, points at a desk. “There.”

Remus shakes his head. “Just marginally too close to the window. We had Defence in the late afternoon, when the setting sun would shine in. I’d’ve been much too hot if I sat there.” Remus points to the desk in front of it. “Plus, Davey Gudgeon sat there, and he had issues with body odor.” He lowers himself into a chair diagonal to the one Black chose. “I sat here.”

“Close enough,” says Black, hands in the pockets of his striped robes.

Remus’ lips quirk, just barely. “What do you want?”

Black perches on the edge of a desk. “What makes you think I want anything from you, Professor?” When Remus doesn’t cough up an instant answer, Black says knowingly, “You look tired.”

Remus stops himself from scratching his elbow. He ran out of Black’s Opaleye only two weeks ago. He can stretch it further the muggle way. The highs last longer. “People have been telling me that for thirty years.”

Black is silent on his feet as he moves toward Remus. He sits against the desk in front. “I’ve been thinking about that night in January.”

Remus bites the tip of his tongue, looks away, moves to stand up. “Mr. Black —”

Black latches onto Remus’ arm. His voice is like liquid gold, molten and dripping from his shapely lips. “I would like it if it could happen again.”

“No,” Remus asserts, nostrils flaring. He takes his arm back. Black squints at him.

“Why?” A cold whisper.

“Because it’s wrong,” Remus sputters, raking a hand through his hair. “Because — because you have a wife and a family, and I have a _conscience_ and I don’t want you on it. I don’t want this on my conscience.”

Black looks out the window. That afternoon sunlight strikes a beam across his eyes, yellow mixed with slate gray, catches on the highlights in his hair. He begins, under his breath, “You certainly seemed eager —”

“I was!” Remus practically shouts, and then his fist clenches. He must sound mad. “I was,” he repeats, calmer. “I — fucking hell, I wanted you, but I thought it’d be a one-off. Nothing more. I figured you had men in your bed all the time. It must be a pureblood custom, no? There are — I can’t imagine everyone can get it up for their cousin, much less that you’re the only pureblood poof in a loveless marriage. And you have all this money, probably a revolving door of whores. I don’t want to be another bit on the side —”

“Stop talking.” Black looks at him distastefully. “You didn’t believe me, then? When I said I don’t take anyone?”

Remus leans into the closest desk, lightheaded. “What reason do I have to believe anything you say?”

Black’s lip curls. He sets himself on his feet, wanders toward the teacher’s desk. “I can’t speak for anyone but the Blacks, but my parents would’ve never. I can’t tell you about their personal sexual proclivities but adultery is pureblood heresy. To lay with anyone but your spouse after marriage is to go against every value we uphold. The importance of strong magic, the family bond — they come above all. Our numbers are dwindling. What does it say about the soundness of our beliefs if we succumb to weakness now when our order of life is most threatened, if we do wrong by what outsiders already claim to be so wrong?”

Remus, jaw set tight, stares at the silhouette of Black. Black tilts his head, observes the trinkets on Remus’ desk. “So if we cannot give in to weakness in marriage, we surrender to other vices. Drink. Drugs. Pornography. Grandmother Irma ate herself to death.” Black examines his nails as he sighs and rolls out his neck.

“You do realize that with every word you say, you back yourself further into a corner?” Remus asks stonily. “You’re a hypocrite.”

Black slams a fist onto the desk, still with his back to Remus. “I’ve done it for nineteen years,” he grits out. “Nineteen fucking years since I was engaged. Eighteen since I married. Seven months later I had a child. Orion the second, born two months premature. He was…” Black clears his throat, sucks in an audible breath. “He was a kilogram and a half when he was born. It’s a fucking miracle of magic, Lupin, that he’s out there, flying on a fucking broom. Mirzam was even smaller, and she hasn’t grown the way Orion did at her age.” Black sets his shoulders. Remus rises from the desk but doesn’t move further.

“I have tried everything,” whispers Black. “Some things just don’t work. Others lose their effect.”

Remus’ voice cracks when he attempts to speak. He coughs the roughness away. “Why would you risk your integrity, the integrity you just gave a bloody monologue about, for something else you couldn’t be sure would work?”

“But I did know.” Remus watches Black’s fingers skim along the edge of the old desk, shared by generations of Defence professors before him. “I did know. I’ve been a faithful husband. But I was rather young when I found I… liked the company of men.” Black taps his knuckles twice against the wood. “Fabian Prewett shagged me over this desk in sixth year.”

Remus’ eyes refocus. Heat pools in his chest, stomach. “What?”

“Hm.” Black smoothes at his robes. “Of course I talked myself into thinking it was acceptable. The Prewetts belonged to the Sacred Twenty-Eight, after all. But he was a year older, too. Head Boy, if a Gryffindor. Very handsome.”

Remus’ feet move of their own volition. “This desk?” he mutters as he touches his hand to it by Black’s fist.

“Yes.” Black retracts his hand closer to his body. “I made a right mess on a pile of exams. Fabian vanished them. Professor Lennox thought she lost them herself.” Remus stands barely behind Black, and can see it when Black’s gaze flickers to him. “You remember Fabian, don’t you, Professor Lupin?”

Remus nods.

Black smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Of course, it didn’t last very long. He was my first. But I came harder than I ever had rubbing off behind those silly bed curtains in the Slytherin dormitories. They never did much for sound, did they, Professor?”

Remus thinks fleetingly of hearing James wank at least thrice a week in the next bed over. “No.”

Black eyes him, disdainful for a moment. “I should leave.”

Remus’ hand jerks out to press to the small of Black’s back. His fingers dig into thick, expensive robes, unable to get a grasp on the form beneath. He inhales heavily, eye contact unwavering as he presses his mouth to the cloth covering Black’s shoulder.

Black’s eyes follow him, lush lips parting. “You clearly don’t want a repeat of what we had that night.”

Remus bites his lower lip, eyes flitting over Black’s face, everywhere. “No, I do,” he whispers. He eases Black’s outer robes off, tosses them over a student desk, wraps arms around him from behind. Feeling his cock pulse, he forces his hips to Black’s pert arse. He kisses behind his ear insistently, runs his palm over the crotch of Black’s trousers. “I do. Please.”

“Professor, you were very adamant —”

“I changed my fucking mind.” Remus shoots locking and silencing spells at the door, then tosses his wand to the floor with a clatter. He buries his nose into Black’s hair — smells bergamot — as he undoes Black’s belt clumsily and blindly. Black hums in that soft tone that Remus so enjoys as he pushes down his clothes to get his arse out, works with one hand on himself and fingers inside of Black, brokenly breathes out the needed spells and bends Black over the desk.

When Black whines _Deeper_ , he kicks out of one of trouser legs to hike his knee up onto the desk. He noisily spills a mug of Remus’ quills. And all the while, as Black clutches at the opposite edge of the desk, arches his arse up for Remus and the sound of skin smacking skin echoes in the classroom, Remus clutches with a bruising grip to Black’s hips and wonders how a man so sick and horrible, twisted this way by tradition and expectations, could give Remus everything he wants. How Black could turn the game around on Remus and dangle the bone in front of his nose — his body? Drugs? Release? Remus pants, peers down the length of his body to watch his cock drive deep into the cleft of Black’s arse. Black moans deep in warning.

“Your papers,” he breathes. There’s a wry curve to his mouth as he looks back at Remus.

“Shit.” Remus doesn’t want to be the professor who _loses the exams_. Brusquely, he hooks his elbow around Black’s throat, pulls him upright. Black chokes against the hold, clutches at Remus’ arm, but it isn’t long before Remus sweeps his free hand in a broad wandless gesture over his desk, sends the papers fluttering chaotically to the floor. It’s a worry for his future self. Black braces himself against the desk, gasping for breath as he’s set free, plastering his forehead to its surface.

Remus gets a hand around Black, feels that the breathlessness had him waning, brings him off in time to his thrusts so Black comes with a grunted _Lupin_ moments before Remus does himself. Black’s spunk drips, pallid and slick, from the desk to the floor.

Remus pulls out. Black eases his knee off the desk. Remus’ clothes stick to him uncomfortably with sweat and he sinks down into a chair, face in his palms, _what the hell am I doing_. And of everyone for Black to make his exception for, _why me?_

When Remus lowers his hands, Black has his clothes fastened and his outer robes on, is straightening the pinstriped lapels. He eyes Remus unreadably.

Remus looks away, feeling himself tense. He expects Black to breeze out of the classroom, break the spells on the door in his departure, but instead Black comes to stand in front of him. With a hand on each desk bookending Remus, he leans over to touch his lips to Remus’ forehead, to the feathery, purpling skin beneath his eye. His upper lip. Black hovers there and they breathe the same dizzying air until Remus turns his face away and awkwardly tucks his softened cock into his trousers. “I think we’re done here, Mr. Black.”

Black slides his hands into the pockets of his robes. He seems to stall. “OWLs are fast approaching. If you could, mm, designate a student in Adhara’s class to tutor her, that would be —”

“Fine. Fine.”

“Good.” Remus hears him swallow. Though he has his eyes fixed on his upturned quill mug, Remus doesn’t miss it when the blue bottle enters his field of vision. Black sets it on the closest desk. “Should you need it,” says Black quietly, and Remus grabs it, hurtles it across the classroom. It shatters against the cupboard of textbooks. Black huffs something like a laugh and strides purposefully from the room.

Remus sets a sorting charm on the papers scattered about the floor. At the windows, he watches as students enrobed in blue prance around in the courtyard, hollering Ravenclaw chants. For ten minutes he manages to ignore the mess by the textbook cupboard. But once he’s sure Black isn’t coming back, he hastens to salvage what he can.

*** 

It starts with _I want to go out with you and your friends_. Remus says _We’re old, we don’t_ ‘go out’ _like that, Dora, James and Lily have a kid._ And when he mentions it over a Sunday night dinner at the Potters’ with James, Lily, and Peter present, it’s meant to be a laugh, like _Ha, we’re old, when was the last time we went out for drinks? I just think it’s funny because Dora said —_ Lily nearly puts her knife right through the table when she stops him mid-sentence. Remus stares into his steak pie knowing he’s made a grave mistake. He might consider himself lucky, though, that Lily’s moved on to something other than _You look like you’ve dropped a stone since I last saw you, Remus!_ or _You’re so pale I could see right through you!_

“Dora?” Lily’s thin brows lift. “I remember you mentioned her a while back, Remus, but you haven’t since, I thought maybe you weren’t —” She glances at James. “Doesn’t she work in MLE?”

After ten years as an Auror, James had moved into a managerial position at the Auror Office. James shovels a loaded fork into his mouth. “I think would know if there was a Dora working under me, Lily. There’s a Dolores, that heinous undersecretary, and a Dorothy in the Obliviator Headquarters, but that’s technically not part of us, and I don’t think she goes by Dora.”

Lily waits for him to finish nattering. “Have some patience and maybe you’ll have to think a little less next time. I meant Nymphadora Tonks, James.”

“Oh!” James points his fork at Lily, then Remus. “She’d throttle me if I called her bloody _Dora_ , but yeah. Auror Tonks.” James scans Remus’ face as he hesitates, fork still hovering. “ _Damn_ , mate, she’s young though, isn’t she?”

“I swear we went through this sometime last year,” says Peter smirkingly, “that Moony likes ‘em young.”

“Piss off, I do not _like them_ —”

“Moony, you pervy shit,” grins James. He cups a hand over his mouth to cover it from Lily’s view, mouthing, _She good in the sack?_ but Lily swats him on the arm with her twisted-up cloth napkin.

“I’m sure Tonks is a lovely, mature young woman,” says Lily. “And I’m glad you brought her up, Remus. We don’t do anything on weekends when Harry isn’t home. And I know you don’t either, Peter — don’t give me that look, your owls get back within the hour. We could start simple? A pub night? Tonks can come along. When’s the next full moon?”

That was a week before March’s full, and it’s a week after it that Remus, drowsy from a week of sleeping draughts and now nursing a whisky that claims to be artisan, finds himself sitting in a round booth by the window in a hip new pub in Diagon Alley. Hermia’s Starlight Brewery, or something of that ilk.

“This is trendy, innit?” huffs Lily, looking about at the glowing dirigible plums floating just above their heads. Peter squints at the menu.

“I don’t recognize any of these beers,” he says woefully.

“They’re craft.” Dora pats the back of Peter’s wrist. “Just order the one with the highest alcohol content.”

Remus rolls his eyes and Dora catches his gaze to stick out the very tip of her tongue at him. A smile tugs at his lips. He rests his arm along the back of the curving bench behind Dora. It’s been twenty minutes since they arrived, fifteen since Dora did, and probably twelve since his friends found themselves enchanted by her.

Remus sips on his whisky. James and Dora trade off the role of the narrator on a series of MLE nightmare stories. Watching Dora’s reflection in the window, he comes to realise its black backdrop isn’t just the night, but a black-robed figure with a face so pale it almost glows the same as the waning gibbous in the sky. Remus’ nails scrape into the lacquered surface of the table as he curls his hand into a fist, and as not to interrupt the conversation, mutters, “Smoke,” and slips out of the booth.

The night sends a chill up his spine that fizzles out into the flushed burn of the skin on his back of his neck. Black is there, leaning against the wall, gazing at Remus with a mask of apathy. “Time came for her to meet the family, I see,” says Black, whose voice quavers over the final word because Remus has him by the arm, jerks him into the alley beside Hermia’s and shoves him up against the brick wall.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demands.

Black’s eyes narrow accusingly. “Walking through Diagon Alley. I can’t help what I see.” His eyes flick up and down. “You’re still seeing my dirty-blooded cousin —”

“She’s no dirtier than I am.” Remus grasps him by the jaw, fingers crushing, pins his head to the brick. “You’re demented,” he whispers. “What I do and with whom I do it are none of your business, Mr. Black.”

Black says nothing, breaths heavy, jaw clenched. Then, his eyes lifting to Remus’, he murmurs, “Tell me more, then. Tell me about how lovely she is.”

Remus swallows uncomfortably. “ _No_ ,” he seethes. “I need you to leave —”

Black’s hand snakes down Remus’ belly, seizes his crotch. Remus jumps at the sudden touch, releasing Black and colliding with the wall opposite. “She’s too good for you,” Black murmurs, rubbing at the phantom feeling of Remus’ hand on his jaw. Remus looks at the ground, and he sees it coming this time when Black moves close enough to touch him, stroke at him below the line of his belt, over his clothes. He sees it coming but doesn’t move. “She’s good, Professor. Good in every way. You can’t justly want her.” And that hurts, sets off the guilt center in his brain with a blaring klaxon. Remus’ eyes shut tight enough to see sparks. He groans inadvertently, a guttural noise. Black rubs the heel of his hand over the thickening shape of Remus through his trousers.

“Listen,” whispers Black. Tucked into the alleyway, safe from the stinging whistle of the wind, Remus can hear everything he says. “I want you.” His lips brush the corner of Remus’ jaw. Remus starts to feel the vague shape of him so close to his body, even if he refuses to see. “I want you, even with what you are.”

Remus clears his throat, rolls his head back against the rough brick with a shaky exhale. “Dora knows what I am.” His voice is ragged.

“She’s young. Fickle. What did you want when you were twenty-four, Professor?” urges Black. “Would you have wanted yourself as you are now?”

 _Of course not_ is the answer that Remus doesn’t voice. It should be a rhetorical question. Dora deserves more than him, and still, she seems to like him, just him.

Remus’ mind goes blank when Black unhands him only to cup his cheeks. Black isn’t short by any means but they aren’t eye level so he has to pull Remus downward to kiss him on his slack lips. Remus pictures him rising onto his toes, doesn’t check though because it’s bizarrely tender and he likes it and falls into it as he hasn’t kissed anyone like that in his recent memory, and should he open his eyes, he’d stop himself. But though Black tastes warm and his teeth scrape Remus’ lower lip, he suddenly begins to wonder how many cigarettes he could’ve smoked in this time and pushes Black away. He looks far too debauched in the blackness of the alley. Remus doesn’t even think their tongues touched.

“I have to go back inside,” Remus says stoically, wiping at his mouth.

“You don’t have to do anything,” counters Black. And then he strides from the alley, drawing up the hood of his cloak. Remus thinks it’s the last he’ll see of him until he realises Black is heading into Hermia’s. Remus stalks in behind him but freezes inside the vestibule. Black glances at Remus over his shoulder but doesn’t make himself known to Dora, Lily, Peter, or James, entrenched in animated discourse in their booth. He simply strides past them. Remus grips onto the wall, waits until Black disappears from sight through the door marked _Toilet_.

Gathering himself, heart knocking furiously against the inside of his ribcage, Remus returns to his friends. On a spur of the moment, he smiles tightly at them and knocks back the rest of his whisky without sitting down. “Loo,” he offers, deposits his glass on the table and kisses the top of Dora’s head, and in meandering to the toilets wonders if he’s spoken more than two words this evening.

Black leans against the wall with his legs crossed, hood lowered. “I thought you might make me wait,” he says loftily as Remus steps inside. There’s no lock on the door and Remus refuses to be caught as two of four feet under a toilet stall so he binds it shut magically. With a nauseating feeling he realises he’s jumped far ahead.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” Remus murmurs. Now that he’s here, door locked and standing in the middle of the floor with Black’s cloudy eyes on him, he feels trapped in a headspace of sick potent desire and ire at the wrong place and time, stuck in skin he doesn’t want to be in, wishing he could shred at it with the claws that take root once a month but all he has now are nails bitten to the quick. He steps toward the sinks, grabs a hold of the counter. “I don’t know what’s wrong with _me_.” From the corner of his eye, he sees Black approach, and he lifts a shaking palm up to hinder him. “You — you’re married. I teach your children. In my classroom. Every week. Your beliefs go against everything I stand for. Your beliefs started a fucking war!” He rails on Black, turning to eye him down. “A war that killed my friends, almost killed my best friends. Almost killed their _infant_ _son_.”

Black’s tongue presses to the inside of his cheek. “I was never a Death Eater.”

“The fuck you weren’t.”

“I _wasn’t_. I had some semblance of self-preservation. My dear brother, on the other hand — he must’ve had some sort of inferiority complex —”

“So you were a bystander, then.”

Black looks Remus up and down. “You could put it that way.”

Remus grimaces, grapples for the counter again. “Christ.”

Black’s hands take hold of Remus’ arms from behind. He feels Black’s chest brush his shoulder blades. “My wife and children, they’ll never know,” says Black into the shell of his ear. _What a statement — do you even hear yourself?_ Remus twitches when the restroom door rattles, but it’s manually impenetrable. “And we have our differences, Professor, but I should think you would’ve noticed that long ago.” Black’s hands slide up Remus’ arms and back down to his elbows. Remus shuts his eyes when he feels a sigh against the back of his neck. “And still, we’ve done this — what? Twice already?”

“We’re not _doing_ anything.”

Black ignores him. “And still you want me.”

Remus’ lips twist sourly. “I don’t.”

“You do.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Fine. You don’t want me.” Black sighs again, hooks his chin over Remus’ shoulder. “But you like that I want you.”

When Remus says nothing, Black’s thumbs massage into his arms, squeeze at the sides of his shoulders, stroke down the length of his back. “And I do. I am… drawn to you, Professor Lupin.” His fingers, cold to the touch, slip under the fabric of Remus’ jumper and caress his waist. “And you like that I want you. You like coming back to me. You wouldn’t fuck me a second time thinking you wouldn’t want me a third. That’d be the definition of insanity, would it not?” Lips above the collar of his jumper. “And you’re not. You’re not mad.”

 _Am I not?_ Remus drops his chin to his chest, shakes his head. He pushes Black’s hands from his body — they come away easily, surprisingly pliantly — and once he’s turned, he and Black are face to face. His eyes are an almost limpid gray, reflections of clouds on sidewalk puddles. Remus expects Black to make a move, dickishly grab his crotch again like he had in the alley, but he doesn’t. The guile and nastiness are gone from his eyes. He watches Remus back, then leans up as if to kiss him, but Remus’ hand closes over his jaw first. Black’s eyelids, lavender and spidery with faded veins, fall shut.

“Lupin,” he whispers. “Please.”

Remus’ thumb pulls at Black’s bottom lip, presses into the bright pink of his tongue, hot and wet. The heat of Black’s breath spreads warmth from Remus’ knuckle to his wrist and up his arm to suffuse his chest and neck. Remus glances toward the door, eyes fixated upon it as he kisses Black, a short drag of lips. And when he finally looks at him, he says against his mouth, “Suck me.”

Black groans, quiet, and without a sound but for the rustle of his cloak, he drops to his knees. Remus grips onto the counter, unsteadied by Black’s nimble hands working open his trousers, dragging down his pants just enough, palming at him, feeling his girth. Black licks his palm and his hand works over Remus until he’s thick and fully hard and then he licks over Remus’ cock from base to tip. Remus, forcing his gaze to the ceiling, wonders how many dicks Black sucked at Hogwarts.

Black is eager but out of practice as he finally takes Remus into his mouth. It doesn’t make Remus’ breath come any slower. “Oh, god,” Remus hisses through clenched teeth, his head dropping back heavily.

Black’s nose is nestled in the curls at the base of Remus’ cock when Remus hears him shift. He looks down his body, past Black’s slowly bobbing head to where he’s drawn out his wand. “What’re you —” starts Remus, but Black pulls off and drags Remus’ trousers and pants to mid-thigh, squeezes his wand for a wordless spell. Black’s hand snakes between Remus’ legs and he peers up at him, _gorgeous_ , sickeningly gorgeous, and kisses Remus’ thigh as he mutters, “It’ll feel even better, I promise.”

And Remus only croaks a shaky “ _Fuck_ ,” as Black circles one of his pianist’s fingers, wet and slick, over his hole. Presses in. Remus clenches instinctively, shoulders twitching with adjustment. Black’s sinful lips part again to kiss up the flushed underside of Remus’ cock and suckle on his head. He takes Remus apart with his mouth and finger against the sinks, and when Remus comes with a stifled cry, Black swallows him dry, pets at Remus’ hole with the pad of his finger. The door rattles again and Black reclothes Remus by hand and cleans his hands in the sink Remus isn’t blocking. Remus, still breathing heavily, notices from the corner of his eye that it’s only with a cursory glance in the mirror that Black checks his appearance. He lifts his black hood to cover his black head and unlocks the door with a flick of his wand, smiling faintly at Remus. Rattling no longer futile, the door gives way and James stumbles in with a deluge of laughter and dialogue from the pub beyond. James blinks in shock at the door handle while Black sweeps past him and disappears into the pub.

“Figured it was just finicky,” huffs James, who allows the door to slam behind him as he strides past Remus to the urinals. “Pete said it was locked, but we’ve been opening his jam jars for years, haven’t we?”

Remus licks his upper lip, tastes the salty tang of sweat. James hums as he pisses, zips with verve, belches loudly and mutters, “ _Merlin fuck_ ,” on his way to join Remus at the sinks. Remus feels himself scrutinised. “All right, Moony? You don’t look too good.”

Remus shakes his head. The more his heart’s thrumming slows, the more a stinging disquietude settles into his chest. The sound of the faucet James turns on roars in his ears. He fishes a cigarette from his pocket, lights it with a palmed fire. His pants stick to his skin with Black’s conjured lubricant. “Er,” he breathes once James turns to him, shaking water from his hands. Remus nods jerkily. “Yeah, no. I should probably get home.”

James claps him on the back and doesn’t question anything.

***

Either Black forgets to ply him with Opaleye scales or Remus has come to expect them.

Then he remembers he threw them across his classroom the last time. He didn’t think it would leave an impression.

It’s now two months from midsummer and the nights are shorter than they’ve been for a while and still Remus acts rashly the Sunday prior to the full moon. He smiles in greeting at Rosmerta as he makes his way to the house Floo in the back of the Three Broomsticks, where he graciously allows the two witches who come up behind him to Floo first so no one is present to overhear him toss the Floo powder and say, “Sirius Black’s study, Black Manor, Alderley Edge.”

He dusts soot from his jacket, undoubtedly smearing it onto his face some way or another. Stepping into the silent room, he begins to fret; it’s very much possible Black isn’t even home. And if that is the case, should Remus wait for him? Should he leave again, march back out of the Three Broomsticks past Rosmerta as if he’d simply used her loo? Remus is mid-decision, spelling his shoes clean, when the floor creaks. Mrs. Black steps through the ajar bookcase door from the bedroom.

“Professor Lupin,” she says softly, though with less surprise than Remus thinks fitting.

“Mrs. — Mrs. Black, I,” Remus starts, but he can’t just dive back into the fireplace, not when she’s striding toward him. Mrs. Black is waif-thin but taller even than Mr. Black, just shy of Remus’ height, or perhaps that’s the heels he can hear clicking against the hardwood floor. She’s in simple, sweeping robes, her hair cropped close to her dark skin.

“Polly, please, Professor. It’s quite alright. You can call me Polly.” Something like a smile pulls at the corners of her lips as she offers Remus her hand, and he kisses it mechanically.

Remus lets her hand flutter back to her side. “I shouldn’t’ve,” he murmurs, winces when his voice rolls roughly, and glances at the empty study. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Black, _Polly_ —”

“Professor Lupin.” Mrs. Black chuckles. “I know why you’re here. Do take a seat. My husband has told me about your little arrangement.” She gestures to the chair Remus sat in his first night at Black Manor. “He’ll be in shortly, I’m sure he’ll hear us — he’s in the bedroom being vain about his hair. You’ll stay for tea, won’t you? We have a few minutes before we’re to leave. Minty!”

Remus, heat stinging his cheeks, takes the chair. “The arrangement?” he utters as he rubs his palms along his thighs, failing to wipe them dry of sweat.

Mrs. Black sighs as she sits in the loveseat across from Remus. “Professor Lupin, you needn’t be ashamed that you’re buying drugs from my husband,” she says with an air of absent-mindedness, then snaps her fingers twice. “ _Minty!_ Tea for three!” Her gaze moves to Remus. “It’s something of a hobby of his, these poisons. Given your malady, I imagine he’s been rather helpful.”

The stout house-elf apparates just short of the coffee table where she sets down a silver platter of tea and empire biscuits. Black himself makes the floor groan again, even with his deft gait, as he comes through from the bedroom.

“I thought I heard a familiar voice.” Black smirks at Remus and lowers himself next to his wife.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Remus stammers.

“The Malfoys won’t mind terribly if we’re late to dinner, will they, Apolline?” says Black, turning his wry smile on his wife. “I do enjoy making Lucius wait.” He crosses his legs, finishes tying and tucking away the silken cravat at his neck. “You’re welcome in our home at any time, Professor Lupin.”

Remus nods. He chances a look at Mrs. Black. “Have classes finished for the term at Imperial?” he inquires. He wasn’t expecting to see her, but it might be because he hasn’t thought about her. Truly didn’t think at all before Flooing to Alderley Edge. Remus’ question comes out stilted and Black grins, settling his hand against the inside of his thigh. Mrs. Black reaches for the teacup that Minty offers her.

“Mm. It’s spring holiday.” Her eyes don’t crease as she smiles — whether it’s for lack of authenticity or her agelessness, Remus isn’t sure. “Exams are soon.” Remus feels himself watched as he accepts a cup from Minty. “If you don’t mind me asking, Professor Lupin, did you attend a wizarding institution before you started teaching at Hogwarts?”

Black appears supremely comfortable on the sofa, one arm stretched out behind his wife without touching her. There are two full feet of space between them. Remus burns his tongue peering over the rim of his teacup as Black’s hand slides further up his thigh to squeeze at his crotch. He sets the cup on the table before he can spill it. “Edinburgh,” he answers, then inhales to clear the breathlessness from his tone. “The autumn after the war. Professor Dumbledore was a great help in getting in.” Black’s fingers tease the elaborate lacing on his pants. “Their magical branch has an excellent — Dark creatures department.”

“Edinburgh,” muses Mrs. Black. “They’re rather liberal up there, the wizardkind, aren’t they, darling?” Black’s hand skates up his stomach to rest on his chest before she can make eye contact. He merely hums his assent. She looks at Remus shrewdly. “I’m sure you made a suitable addition to their department of Dark creatures.”

Heat prickles at the back of Remus’ neck. “Right,” he whispers.

“Adhara’s owls tell me she’s doing much better in your class. Thank you for arranging a tutor for her.”

“Of course, Mrs. —”

“She would’ve had a dreadful summer, resented me for keeping her here to revise for resits…”

“Dear.” Black sits up. “I should give Professor Lupin what he came here for.”

Mrs. Black looks between them, lips parted, and levitates her tea to the tray. “Certainly.” She stands. “If we’re going to make Lucius wait, I suppose I’ll change before we go.” Her hand taps Remus’ shoulder as she passes, click-clicking her wait to the secret door. “Don’t be a stranger, Professor.”

Black waits until the bookcase door glides shut. He glares at the house-elf sulking behind Remus’ chair. “Leave us, Minty.” She apparates on command, and Black nearly upends the silver platter as he circles the coffee table to sink down into Remus’ lap, grasp the back of his head, kiss him heatedly. Remus caresses the shape of Black’s arse and erection through his tight trousers, guiding him into his lap so he can feel him where he wants him. But it’s Black who withdraws from his lips, his hand on Remus’ cheek, scraping against week-old stubble. He peers into Remus’ tired eyes and the weight of him makes Remus’ achy bones scream but his rushing adrenaline drowns it out.

“We can’t,” murmurs Black. The pad of his thumb strokes Remus’ eyelid shut. He kisses it. “Not now. She’s too close.” Remus feels disembodied from his buzzing skin and yet he’s present enough to clutch Black by the waist. Black’s mouth finds his again and their tongues slip together. Want washes over Remus. “In a month’s time, my wife and I will be in France for the summer,” Black whispers into his mouth. The frown on his lips is sour when they disconnect. “She’s a Rosier. Or her father is. They have property in Provence, and we’ll stay there all of summer as we always do. And once term ends at Hogwarts, our children will join us.” Black swallows. “Until September.”

Black rolls off Remus’ lap. With his wand he opens the bookcase door, _Accio_ s a blue bottle from the bedroom. Remus gets a head rush at the sight of it. “That’s four months I can’t give you this.”

Remus sits up, half-hard with sweat beading at his hairline. “Please, just —”

“I can’t give it all to you now, Professor, or you’ll knock yourself senseless while school is still in session.” Black turns the bottle over in his hand. “Have you been seeing Nymphadora?”

Remus’ brows crinkle. “Have I —? No, not since the night at the pub.” And not by conscious decision. She’s remarkably busy.

Black rolls out his shoulders. Joints crackle. He tosses the bottle to Remus, who barely catches a hold. “Minty will bring it to you. To — the Shrieking Shack, is it?” Black cracks his knuckles as well. “And if you aren’t there, she’ll find you. Bottom line, she’ll find you.”

Remus rises onto wobbly legs and pockets the bottle. In his pocket, his fingers feel desperately at the bottle’s shape and grooves. “Mr. Black…”

“Clearly I would like for you to take me once more, Professor Lupin, but we haven’t the time,” mumbles Black. He traipses to Remus, grips the lapel of his jacket. Remus watches him rub his thumb over the shoddy material. “Mirzam said in her last letter that your class is her favorite.” Black’s heavy-lidded eyes rake slowly up to Remus’ face. “She liked the obstacle course, in particular.” Taking Remus by the collar, Black hauls him in for a kiss, and as soon as he does he’s clearing his throat and backing away. “Until September, Professor.”

Remus closes his eyes, latches onto the mantle for support. The bookcase closes and he’s alone.

He injects that evening in the shack. As he fades, his Opaleye high is syrupy sweet, his bones and muscles and mind unencumbered. His hand flames have him thinking of Black.

Waking up is like wading through tangible fog, and once Remus does the wading and makes it to the other side, it’s with a growl of his stomach that he realizes he has less than an hour left in the day he slept through to take his dose of wolfsbane to render it effective. He is more jarred than concerned — he’s already within the rickety walls of the shack, barricaded from the outside world. But it’s been years since he last transformed mentally and ripped himself to shreds. For children, convalescence is part of the day-to-day, _was_ practically part of his day to day at Hogwarts. Healing spells can cure what’s under the skin but as it weathers and withers with passing years, it’s harder to reknit and clings to itself in the form of puckered scars, knurled tissue left to hold together and keep inside what magic cannot. Remus doesn’t know if his body could take it. He hasn’t met the mind of the thirty-seven year old wolf that lies dormant within, can’t know if it’s grown fiercer or stronger with repression.

But he swigs April’s seventh dose of wolfsbane and sags onto the dusty bed in the shack, left to stare unseeingly at the water stain in the ceiling and wonder how he’ll recover tomorrow from Snape’s inevitable curriculum deviations. How, come the empty summer, he’ll recover from Sirius Black’s blue bottles and gray eyes, from the man black of name, hair, and heart.

***

Remus overhears in the staffroom days before the end of term that Mirzam Black is top of third year, not simply in Defence. He won’t know how well her sister did on her OWLs any sooner than she will. He’s tidying up his office and packing for the summer when he hears the whiz-crack of apparition — so unnatural on Hogwarts grounds — outside the door to his office. A curt knock follows, and Remus opens the door to find the Blacks’ house-elf standing on the doormat. “Minty is bringing sir Professor Lupin a delivery,” says the elf without meeting Remus’ eyes. She extends a blue bottle wrapped in bony fingers. Remus warily looks past her at his empty classroom, then takes the bottle with so light a touch it slips and clatters to the floor, thankfully without breakage. “Oh, Minty is so sorry, sir, so clumsy, sir. Minty has hams for hands, as her Mistress would say.”

“It’s alright, Minty. Thank you.” Remus stoops to curl his fingers around the bottle. He must imagine it, because he knows Opaleye scales’ potency is only activated by contact with moisture or fire, but he can feel the powder’s hum of promise through the glass. When the elf doesn’t instantly disapparate, Remus leans against the doorway, inspecting the bottle. “Can — can I offer you tea?” He’s never so directly interacted with a house-elf before. The Potters never had any, and the ones toiling floors below at Hogwarts tend to keep out of sight.

“Sir is kind, but Minty must be going to King’s Cross. It is Minty’s responsibility to get the children home punctually lest the little Mistresses Black and young Master Orion miss their international portkey.”

“To France,” Remus supplies, touching the cool glass of the bottle to his lips.

“To France, sir.”

Over his shoulder, he checks the grandfather clock in his office. “Seeing as the Express left at eleven this morning, it should be arriving at King’s Cross within the hour.”

“Minty must go, sir.”

“Yes,” whispers Remus. He clears his throat. “Send my best to Mr. and Mrs. Black, Minty.”

“Sir.” She zaps out of being.

Dumbledore has arranged for Remus to spend the remainders of June and all of July in the Highlands researching, for both the Hogwarts curriculum and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, what seems to be a northerly emergence of Erklings far from their controlled home in Germany. Child disappearances in the area have spiked in recent months and magical residents have reported their suspicions. Snape has kept busy — when he’s not teaching his own classes and covering Remus’ and torturing mostly innocent Gryffindors — brewing several batches of wolfsbane for Remus to pack with him in beastly-looking jugs in case research bleeds into August.

He lives in a cottage tucked away into the sleepy village of Lairg. It’s a rainy summer and the nights are practically nonexistent such that even at the moon’s peak when Remus lays as a docile wolf in the cellar, the sun’s ochre sheen creeps under the cellar door and reminds him that the menacing scrim of black night is nothing to fear when the moon will find him anywhere.

Similar to Minty, who apparated into his kitchen two nights before the full while Remus was peering into his barren refrigerator. He puts his stakeouts — setting up shop in various parts of town under blankets of disillusionment charms, listening for and recording the cackles of Erklings, _one_ Erkling if he’s lucky, that is, none if he’s not — on hold to cook Opaleye scales and lay in the tattered living room beloved by dust. It’s when he awakens to down his last dose of wolfsbane — he almost drops it, can hardly feel his fingers — that he rubs one off on the musty sofa, literally _rubs_ , ruts against a pillow because he can’t bend his Opaleye-numb fingers enough to grasp his cock. He pictures Black, Sirius Black, being inside Sirius Black’s velvet warmth, watching his impenetrable eyes as he fucks him because he hadn’t done it enough the first two times and _hell_ would he like to, like to watch his lips circle around his orgasm knowing what they can do to Remus and with so little practice, too. He spends in his trousers but his wand is in the kitchen and he doesn’t have long before the wolf takes him over, so when he wakes in the morning he smells not only of musky dog but of the ammonia of dried spunk.

By mid-July Remus has honed the Erklings’ habitat to a thicket of woods not far from the shore of Loch Shin. He’s walking home in the lukewarm twilight of nine in the evening from one of the village’s few pubs when his ears catch the melodic laugh, the one that prompts children to question why they aren’t where the laughter is. He sees the girl — she can’t be older than five — wander in a trance out the doors of a bed and breakfast and onto the roadside shoulder, as if sleepwalking toward the laughter’s source. Remus swears under his breath, sprints after her, but from the same bed and breakfast emerges a man who sees, _okay_ , what Remus, had he been in his shoes, might also have seen — a stranger going after his daughter. The man, reeking of scotch, gets a good few punches in before Remus can grip his wand in his jacket’s inner pocket and cast the first spell that comes to mind. He repents minutes later, once the man and his daughter are safe inside the bed and breakfast, that the curse on the tip of his tongue was the Imperius, but Remus would rather the cowardly solution than involve his own fists, draw attention and get locked up for brawling and alleged abduction in some remote Highland holding cell overnight.

In the midst of _Episkey_ ing his nose back into place in his cottage, an owl flies through his open window. It’s from Lily; a short letter in her swooping cursive, a snapshot of James looking as athletic as a young father can and bronzed under the golden sun of — Remus checks the letter — Devon, Harry actively hiding from the camera. A mandated family getaway before Harry spends his seventeenth birthday, _as_ _he demands_ , writes Lily, _with the Weasleys_. Remus sticky-charms the picture to his refrigerator.

Minty appears two evenings prior to July’s full, and before he can crumble like James’ under-buttered shortbread, Remus begs her to come back with the scales two mornings later. He knows if he has them, he’ll take them and conk out, but he needs to be awake, if in grave pain, to head into the forest with the best disguise he knows in order to ascertain the coordinates of the Erklings’ nest. When he knows, he’ll notify Dumbledore and the Ministry, who will call in the German Ministry’s creatures department to wrangle the Erklings the way only they know how.

He attends Harry’s party at the Burrow, joining the Weasleys, James, Lily and Peter, and Hermione Granger. He stays for its first hour before begging off with claims of getting a head start on lesson planning. Never in his life has Remus associated the Shrieking Shack with relief or thrill — his best times were always in the woods with James and Peter, not alone — but sinking onto the bed so it billows dust and tapping lustrous powder from the blue bottle into a spoon, not silver but steel, brings with it a feverish rush that dampens the residual aches he didn’t medicate back in Lairg.

Remus doesn’t have a flat of his own, hasn’t since Dumbledore hired him, not when he spends all his time at school or, during summer, conducts research remotely for his professorship. Lily says he needs a better work-life balance, _Living at work year-round isn’t healthy, Remus_ , so when he gives in to her inevitable correctness he goes to his parents’ empty home in southern Wales. He lived there until the end of last summer when he traveled to London to take the Hogwarts Express to school. He’d had an excuse to take the train. He decides when he rolls out of bed in the shack, numb and weak, that he’ll spend August in Wales. Clean and fix what has fallen into disrepair, sleep not in the musty cellar into which his parents would padlock (Mum) and ward (Da) him once a month, but in his childhood bedroom. And he’ll catch the train back to Hogwarts.

*** 

 _So you’re still in the Malfoys’ good graces_ , thinks Remus as he steps onto the platform only to watch Adhara Black and Draco Malfoy jog past, hand in hand. Their passing is followed by “Hi Professor Lupin! Bye Professor Lupin!” as Mirzam runs past, a violet pygmy puff cradled in her hands, urged along by Orion Black, holding title of Head Boy for the year. Mirzam is no bigger than when he last saw her. Remus smiles, lifts his hand in a wave, and it’s as if he hesitates to let his eyes wander to prolong the stutter in his chest at who is doubtless nearby.

“Hey Remus,” Harry says dully, appearing at his side. Remus raises an eyebrow at him.

“Have a good rest of your birthday, Harry?”

Harry smirks then, brows disappearing under his bedhead fringe. “Yeah. Sick. Dad got me the Comet Supernova. The fucking acceleration that thing —”

“Language, mate,” says James, who claps a hand onto Harry’s shoulder as he comes up behind, “or the noble and most ancient Blacks’ll think I raised a varmint.” James winks at his son, and Remus feels his head go light as Mr. and Mrs. Black stroll past. There’s a ghost of a smile on Black’s lips as if he’s overheard. He’s regal like always, pale as if he hasn’t seen the sun of the French Riviera all summer long.

“Remus,” greets Lily, touching his arm. “I thought you were at Hogwarts already?”

“No,” is what Remus offers belatedly. “Here I am.” Lily gives him a funny smile and James tries to hug Harry, inevitably provoking a wrestle match that Remus is just able to dodge before they pitch him straight onto the tracks.

“Professor.” A satin voice at his left. Remus turns, locks eyes with Black. Harry escapes James’ grasp, the latter evidently distracted by Black’s approach. Black smiles with a twitch of flushed lips. “If I might speak to you…”

Remus only stares at him a moment. The train hoots in warning. “Go on, Harry, love,” mutters Lily in the background of the whirring in Remus’ brain.

“Certainly,” says Remus.

He follows Black to a more secluded pillar on the platform, away from the clusters of family.

“ _Here?_ ” hisses Remus once they’re out of sight, peering around the pillar.

“Relax,” chuckles Black. “I don’t have any on me. I just wanted to see you... Professor.”

Remus bites his lip. Scans Black, drinks him in. “I need to be on that train.” He rubs his jaw. “I — sorry. Thank you for sending Minty over the summer.”

Black’s head tilts to the side. Remus would like to bite his exposed neck. “Professor, I’d like it very much if you could spend the harvest moon with me at Black Manor. I have something I’d like to show you.”

Initially, Remus doesn’t react. Then he sighs, shaky. “Yeah, alright,” he murmurs, evading Black’s flinty gaze.

“Good. I’ll send the elf with the scales again, and you’ll Floo to my study the night of. Are we clear?”

Remus lifts his eyes. Indignantly, he mutters, “Are you talking down to me?”

Black bites his lip, turns away from the pillar. “Forgive me if I’m being tetchy.” Remus walks almost on his heels. “I’m at odds with the fact that I can’t touch you now.” Black casts a look over his shoulder. “Don’t miss your train, Professor Lupin.” Offering his Mrs. Black his elbow, they merge with the portal wall under the sign reading _9 3/4._

“Moony, what in Merlin’s saggy nadgers was that?” hisses James.

Remus needs to catch the train. “I need to catch the train.”

James jogs alongside him, excusing himself in repeated mutters as he shoulders past parents and siblings too young to board the Express. “Was he threatening you? Does he know about your, er, pet rabbit?”

“No. It’s — he’s a parent, Prongs, tell Merlin he can calm his saggy nadgers.” He halts in front of an open set of doors. “Just worried about his kids.” James doesn’t buy it. Remus squeezes his shoulder, smiles, climbs aboard.

***

Remus is drowsy from a twelve-hour doze on Opaleye and has a bitter taste in his mouth from the wolfsbane he’s just downed when he comes through the fireplace in Black’s study. It’s silent as he paces toward the coffee table, flops onto the armchair he tends to occupy. On the wall directly across the room from him is a moth-eaten tapestry of a family tree. The Black family tree, it must be. He hasn’t noticed it until today, perhaps because it was in this line of sight that Mrs. Black sat during his last visit, and Mr. Black the first. Remus rises, tiptoes toward it curiously. The floorboards squeak but the bookcase door remains shut. Remus’ eyes follow twining threads of generations of Blacks, all the way down to an ugly burn between _Bellatrix_ and _Narcissa_. The fabric of the scorch mark endures despite its singed netting. _Andromeda_. Dora’s mother.

She isn’t the only charred blemish on the tapestry. Remus counts six in total. He traces a fingertip over the swooping _Alphard_. But then the bookcase door opens and Black pads into the study, footsteps soft for lack of shoes, and Remus stumbles back several steps from the tapestry. It’s a moronic move. Black sees him and chuckles.

“We don’t kill cats for their curiosity in my house, Professor,” says Black. Remus fixes his eyes on Andromeda’s name. “Or wolves, for that matter. Just house-elves, if they get too nosy.”

Remus side-eyes Black. His chest gnarls the way it does whenever Black speaks for too long. And yet, Remus is here for the very man who makes him that sick. “Charming.”

“Take a joke, Professor Lupin.” Black gets close. Remus senses his eyes raking over him. Then Black’s hand brushes his arm, which has Remus flinching, wobbling on less-than-operative legs. “Mm. Post-high shakes.”

Remus swallows. Warmth blooms outward from the spot their bodies join. “I know Andromeda married a muggle.” He points at the tapestry, deliberately neglects to mention Dora. “What did Alphard do?”

“It’s a family heirloom,” murmurs Black. He kisses Remus’ shoulder. Remus’ heavy eyelids fall closed. “With my father dead and my mother senile, it came to me. My uncle Alphard… he did nothing more than what I’m doing at this very moment.” His tongue drags up the side of Remus’ neck, a hand fastening to the dip of Remus’ waist. “But I’m not so much a masochist, Professor, to burn myself off.” Remus hears the smile in his voice, feels it more so against his neck.

He cracks his eyes open. Three little branches of golden thread, newer than the rest of the tapestry, descend between _Sirius_ and _Apolline Rosier: Orion II, Adhara, Mirzam._

“I missed how you smell,” says Black, and it somehow sounds nothing like him, gravelly and flowing not from the fountain of youth like his clear-as-crystal voice always does.

Remus dizzily turns into him, seeking Black’s mouth, and when he finds it he wraps his arms around Black’s neck, breathes of relief into his mouth. Coming to Black Manor is nothing like coming home; Hogwarts and James and Lily’s house in Godric’s Hollow would be the closest Remus has to a home. But Black is his foil. Incomparably exquisite where Remus is scarred and uncomely. Within, hideous and black as his heritage except when he’s so rarely holding Remus like a lover, _lusting_ after him, easing his pain. And Remus — he tries to be good, hopes he is, but falls short when vices and his inner monster overcome him.

Remus’ lips go slack and his fingers sink into his own skin. Black’s thumbs drill into his hip bones, and he looks at Remus from so close, still locked within the brackets of Remus’ arms. “Sorry,” mutters Remus.

Black smiles only with his eyes. “It’s almost peak, isn’t it?” He hugs Remus by the waist, and fleetingly he feels an odd sort of warmth until Black takes Remus’ arms from his shoulders and steps backward.

“I had something I wanted to show you,” says Black. He guides Remus to his armchair, angles it away from the coffee table once Remus has sat. Remus regards him with a frown, resists the _Could do with more scales if you have them, which I know you do_ on the tip of his tongue, and sinks into the leather. “Minty,” calls Black into the void of the study, and the elf materializes with a _zap_ to his side. “Tonight, anything that is broken and can be fixed, fix it. Anything that cannot be fixed, well… vanish it.”

“But Mistress —”

“Your mistress will not notice.” Black snorts. “Unless there’s a book missing or out of place in your mistress’ study, she won’t notice. And we’ll steer clear of it.”

“Yes, Master.”

Black gives the house-elf a once-over. “Go.” Minty disapparates.

Remus’ head feels heavy, and as he lifts it, grappling for a hold on the chair’s armrest, he looks at Black. He should be in the shack. Familiar smells, familiar dust — it helps him sleep through the night. If Black could just dope him up… “What were you —?”

Black laughs softly. He’s delicious, aglow in orange from the light of the fire, a lithe silhouette of the sinuous curves of man, until he’s not. Within the span of a step, his knees arch backwards, his fingers bind themselves into powerful black paws, his silky hair overtakes his body. It’s a dog, _Black_ is a dog, sitting feet away from Remus with silver eyes, a thick coat, peaked ears. Its tail thumps against the floor once. Remus’ palms are damp.

“Mr. Black,” he whispers.

The dog morphs into Black, who examines his hands, as if checking to see his fur has retreated. Then he sets them on his hips. “Don’t tell a soul, Lupin, or anyone soulless, for that matter. I’m unregistered.”

Remus feels a warning jolt travel up his spine. “Have you always?”

“Not until the end of August.” Black watches him with intent.

Remus rolls his shoulders. The weight of Black’s words sits on his chest, wanting to be known, and yet Remus doesn’t want to listen.

The transformation devours him before Black can demand more of a response. Remus rolls from the chair onto the floor by Black’s feet. When he loses control of his limbs, he does what he always did as a child — tenses those muscles in his ears, the tiny ones called _tensor tympani_ that turn sound into a muddled, gray rumble as long as he can keep them clenched — but it never muffles out snaps of bone. Those noises come from within.

Remus feels a wetness inside his ear, an insistent sniffing. A benign smell. The jab of claws, a nip to the scuff of his neck. Remus clambers onto four legs. The black dog, the source of the happy smell. Its tail whips to and fro. Front paws plant to the floor, bum in the air. An invitation to play. Remus — the wolf — accepts.

He knows what Black meant now, speaking to Minty. The wolf and the dog tumble through Black’s study, through his bedroom and into the reaches of the Manor Remus has yet to see. Gnawing, chasing, thumping bodily into walls and stumbling down stairs, knocking askew vases and artefacts and tablecloths. If something shatters, Remus doesn’t hear it; his own and the black dog’s panting flood his ears. Big doors open onto a patio, and the night is fresh and deciduous green and the Black property, acres of flat kempt grass, borders a thick wood. Remus is slower than the dog — he hasn’t run like this, neither as human nor wolf, since the war — but the wind slicing through his ears and nose is bliss. In the wood, the dog tackles him, bites voraciously at his cheek, and the wolf paws and kicks from beneath to get the dog onto its back. The wolf is bigger, if slower. He wins. And he’ll get faster. Months of this and he’ll be fast as he once was, though never faster than James, that damned deer.

Months of this. Does he want months of this? Right now he does.

The forest floor shouldn’t feel like thousand thread count linens. But it does because it isn’t the forest; Remus is tucked between white sheets, silky against bare skin, _dirty_ skin he notes as he raises his head from the pillow to find an earthy streak of brown on the clean white. It’s from his cheek. Shifting beside him in the bed is Black, also nude, his toes brushing Remus’ ankles as he stretches across the bed to place his wand on the nightstand. A bite shaped like a wolf’s mouth, bruised without breaking the skin, mars his shoulder. Black doesn’t notice Remus is awake, goes to lay on his stomach, so Remus wraps arms around his tight middle and draws Black’s back to his front. Remus is hard, makes sure Black knows as he presses against the cleft of his arse. Black hums, glances backward. There’s a smudge of dirt on his nose.

Remus bites his lip. He grips Black’s hips as he drags his cock, hot and dry, against his arse. The way Black moans is saccharine, and his cheek falls to the pillow as his hand snakes down to cover Remus’ fingers.

“Why did you become an Animagus, Mr. Black,” whispers Remus against the bite on Black’s shoulder. Black squeezes his hand without response. Remus tilts his head against the knobs in Black’s spine, mutters a lubrication spell, massages at Black’s hole until he opens up for a finger.

“Why,” breathes Remus. Black whines. Pale dawn frames the heavy curtains in yellow. Remus crooks his finger. “Tell me.”

“No,” grits Black, his hand frenzied as it presses between him to close over Remus’ length coaxingly. “Please. Please fuck me, please, you’re all I thought of this summer.”

A Black, begging around Remus’ finger. Soon his cock. He drags his finger from Black’s warm depths, casts again, slicks himself. He fucks Black on his side and their beasts become one. Black, who doesn’t ever speak while they shag, not like this, pants, “Like that, like that, _oh_ , Lupin —”

Remus bites again at the mark on Black’s shoulder when he releases inside him. Black comes with a broken cry, again from that foreign, uncharted place. He rolls over to escape the wet spot on the sheets he could easily _Tergeo_ and tucks his face into Remus’ chest, but Remus can lay motionless and hold him for only as long as it takes for him to replay his memory of Black, standing before the fireplace, morphing into his canine form.

“You’re leaving?” murmurs Black, fucked-out, beautiful, still smudged with dirt as Remus climbs out of bed. He nods, clothes himself. Black sits up, tangled in sheets painted with remnants of their forest romp. “Where are you going?”

Remus’ eyes dart to Black, narrowed. He buttons his trousers. “School?”

Black scratches at his shoulder — the bite, presumably. “Professor…”

“I have classes to teach.”

“It’s barely sunrise. I’ll have Minty make —”

“Goodbye, Mr. Black.” Remus shoulders open the bookcase door and Floos to Hogsmeade. 

***

Remus sits tucked into a corner in the Three Broomsticks across from Dora. He drags his fingertip through the condensation on his pint while she works her way through their order of chips.

“Remus,” she says once she’s popped the last chip into her mouth. She eats them like a complete madwoman, without gravy or cheese or even vinegar.

“Hm?” Remus glances up from his pint. Her hair is a rosy pale pink that brings out the two-drink flush on her cheeks and the tip of her nose and juxtaposes oddly against the outdoors’ palette of drizzly October. She has her hair shorter tonight, too, a pixie with a long sweeping fringe. It’s the first time he’s seen her since the spring.

“So, while I’ve been so terribly entertaining going on and on about my Auror adventures, I thought you should know that I… got promoted.”

Remus hums. “Shit. Congratulations.”

“It means I’m something like the Head Auror’s second in command.” Dora licks her finger, drags it through the chip basket to gather any forgotten salt. “Along with, like, four others, but that’s beside the point. It also means that they won’t throw me on just any case, so I won’t get, like, called off in the middle of the night to go break up some drunk bastards brawling at the Leaky, or head to bumfuck Siberia for months to investigate a crup-fighting ring there was a shred of evidence for years ago that the MLE never got around to addressing but now have overdue paperwork on.”

Remus nods and drains his pint. “Only the top tier shit, then. Azkaban escapees, I’d reckon. Serial killers. Merlin forbid, the rise of a second —”

Dora’s laugh cuts him off. “I’ll have more free time,” she murmurs, licking the salt from her finger. Remus swallows hard, feels his Adam’s apple bob. “Getting a divorce from my job, and all.”

Remus doesn’t register what he’s saying. “Ah, yes, severing the proverbial ball and chain —”

“I would like,” starts Dora, laying her hand on top of Remus’, “I — I would like it a lot, Remus, if we could do more than… casual.” Her warm doe eyes are hopeful.

Remus stares at the table instead, scratches at the back of his neck. “How do you mean?”

Dora shrugs, squeezes his hand and lets go. She leans back, kicks up her legs so her feet rest against the bench beside Remus’ knees. “You know what I mean. Be exclusive. I can’t imagine you’ve been sleeping alone every night since we first started seeing each other.” She folds her arms over her chest. “I certainly haven’t.” Remus’ tentative smile is amused, which Dora notices with a smirk. “Shit gets heated on recon missions, sweetheart. Close quarters, dark cramped spaces. Have you ever seen a witch in Auror robes? We’re — of course you have, you’ve seen me in Auror robes. Then you’d know we’re well fit in them.” She reflects for a moment. “And out of them.”

Remus laughs, rubs his hand against his cheek. His fingertips naturally find the groove of a scar he’s had there for years. “ _You_ should know I’m not nearly as fit as a lady in Auror robes.”

Dora’s lips quirk and her boot-clad feet thud against the floor as she sits straight. “Perhaps not. That would be an unfair standard.” Remus snorts, spins his pint around in its puddle of condensation. “But Remus, I like you. A lot. You make me laugh and you’re smart and kind and give oral like no one else.”

Remus goes positively, scorchingly scarlet, laughs a bewildered laugh. “ _Christ_ , Dora —”

“And you’re good with kids. You’re _great_ with them, with your students, and from what James and Lily told me, you’ve been a wonderful godfather to Harry —”

“Not to mention I’m a werewolf,” mutters Remus. This stalls her mid-sentence, but Dora only chuckles, just short of incredulous.

“Right. So you’re on a potion and once a month you sleep as a wolf. Merlin’s _beard_ , can’t believe I forgot about _that_. Changes everything, doesn’t it? I take it back, you’re not sweet or smart _or_ good at oral.” Remus’ eyes flicker up to find Dora with a deadpan expression.

He rubs a hand through the back of his hair. “It’s not just that.”

“No? Alright, state your case, then. I deserve better, right? Something like that? I’m too young for you? You’re too dangerous for me? On our second date, Remus, when you told me your little secret, you also said you’d been on wolfsbane for over a decade without incident.”

“Dora —”

“It shouldn’t be this difficult, Remus.” She finishes her own beer in two swallows, and it glistens on her upper lip as her glass clanks against the table. “If you don’t want to date me, or — or be exclusive with me, whatever, you can say so.”

Remus gazes in her direction, but not quite at her. His heart lurches in audible, quivering beats that meld into a cacophony with the buzz of the Three Broomsticks.

Dora’s smile is sardonic now. “If I’ve just been — imagining things, if you don’t feel the same way…”

“I don’t — I don’t know,” says Remus.

“What is there not to know?”

Remus sighs with all the breath he has, an _Incarcerous_ around his lungs and heart. “I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not…” Dora chuckles, pushing her pink fringe from her eyes. “Whether you like me or not, Remus, isn’t something you go home, sleep on, and then decide. It isn’t — you won’t wake up tomorrow morning and realize _Oh, I do like Tonks_ , because if you do, you’d know now.”

“Of course I like you,” Remus hisses, leaning his elbows onto the table. “Of course I do. You’re incredible. You’re everything I could ever want, you’re all that’s good in the world, but I — I am the way I am.” He wrings his hands almost painfully.

“We’ve already established that isn’t an issue. I don’t even — I don’t even like you in _spite_ of that, Remus. I just like _you_. And it’s part of you.”

Remus is silent, considers the other parts of him. Days wasted intoxicated on dragon scales, the rest on sleeping draughts. A month spent alone in the Highlands. He didn’t bat an eye at living without friendly faces, subsisting on three-word exchanges with the girl behind the till in Lairg’s only grocery store. A mouth, Black’s mouth, that he fucked in the loo at Hermia’s whilst Dora was a room away. Black — adulterer, hypocrite and blood supremacist — whose cousin and wife, one and the same, wiles students of magic onto the sickly, prejudiced side of blood politics. Black, whom he fucks for drugs… or does he? Minty had already brought him September’s dose of Opaleye when Remus chose to Floo to Black Manor for the evening of the harvest moon. And — _a good godfather?_ Perhaps when Harry was younger, when everyone was high on disbelief that the war was over, living in the pockets of the few they hadn’t lost in fear they might never come back from an innocent walk or going out into the garden. Both Remus and Peter bunked in spare bedrooms in James and Lily’s house after that night in October. Peter moved out after a month when he scrounged up a job. Remus stayed for nearly a year before he left to study at Edinburgh.

Remus tastes blood. He bit too much skin off his finger. Dora’s eyes are stormy.

“You know, Remus,” offers Dora, lacing her fingers together, “you’re the only person other than my dad I’ve ever let call me Dora. It never bothered me. Not even right at the start.” She looks past Remus, then slings her bag over her shoulder and stands up.

“D-Dora,” Remus protests, but after her confession, it just feels wrong.

“Piss off.”

Remus slumps, lays his face against his hands. At the Three Broomsticks, orders are placed strictly at the bar, and yet some time later, Rosmerta brings him a second pint and whispers, “On the house, love.” It doesn’t feel deserved and it isn’t, but Remus drinks it as not to waste.

***

Like clockwork since the end of May, the Blacks’ house-elf Minty has apparated within a five-foot radius of Remus at sunset on the eve of the full moon. It’s when the pre-transformative pain is at its peak. Several times he’s nearly asked her to come earlier, but Remus suspects the same way food tastes to a hungry man and water to a thirsty man, the dismantling of ache and stiffness that builds over the course of the day tastes sweetest when the pain is at its worst.

And yet, in October, Remus sits in the shack with a stack of fourth year papers, picking a splinter from the heel of his hand that he earned setting skin to the wood of the shack’s rotting desk. His watch reads just gone midnight and Minty has yet to make an appearance. The knot forming in the back of Remus’ neck, the one twinging with pain since the morning, and the solid, stodgy worry in his gut tell him she won’t be coming at all.

The Hog’s Head is the only establishment open so late on weekdays. To Remus’ luck, it coincides with being the only place a professor can order a double whisky at this time without question, so he knocks it back, lays a few coins on the counter for Aberforth and Floos decidedly to Black Manor.

Black is lounging on the loveseat, knees hooked over the armrest, when Remus comes stumbling in. He holds a book above his head that Remus thinks he must be feigning to read, because the room is lit only by scattered sconces and the book casts Black’s face in shadow. He doesn’t so much as flinch as Remus moves toward him, trembling and agitated and visualising the reason for every premature soreness in his body; the burning in his toes anticipating the rupture of thick claws through calloused skin.

“You could’ve come a bit earlier,” Black says. Now that Remus stands beside his supine body, he can’t remember what he’d intended to do or say, if anything. Black lays the book on his chest and peers up at Remus. “I started getting tired around ten.”

Remus’ upper lip twitches in a snarl. “Been expecting me?”

Black swings his legs off the sofa so he’s sitting up and tosses the book onto the table. His face is blackened by Remus’ shadow. “It seems you already know the answer to that question, Professor Lupin.”

Remus steps back, but his calves hit the table. A fluster overcomes him. He wants nothing more than to lay afloat in a void, add another blue bottle to his collection. Remus fixes his eyes on the family tapestry. “I — I’ll pay. I told you the first time that I’m willing to pay,” he says rigidly.

Black sighs. His deft hands drag up the sides of Remus’ legs, hissing against his trousers’ worn fabric. “Then you’ll recall that I laughed at the prospect of you paying me.” Remus feels Black’s fingers on his belt buckle. He shoves him back by the head, attempts to step out of reach.

Black, nostrils flaring, retaliates by rising so they’re chest to chest. “What the fuck, Lupin?” he seethes. “What the fuck changed, hm? If you expect me to give you scales out of the kindness of my heart, you’re mistaken. We — we had an arrangement, if unspoken. An arrangement in which I thought, frankly, you received the bulk of the benefits. Poison of your choice, a good shag? What could be better, hm? I know you liked it. Having me. You were the fucking instigator on more than one occasion, as I recall it.” Black breathes, lifting his chin defiantly. “Last month, when you walked out, I could tell you didn’t mean to come back.”

“You’re reading too much into this,” Remus says, arms useless at his sides. He can’t look Black in the eye, can’t reasonably explain any of his actions. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Only because —”

“Shut up,” Remus raises his voice. Black scowls at him. “Mr. Black, please, we can have this conversation after —”

“After what?” scoffs Black. “After I _fill your prescription?_ After you fuck off with something I give to you, something priceless, something you can’t find anywhere else, without repaying me the small price I ask for it?”

“I stayed.” Remus’ eyes are stony. “I stayed last month.”

“And will you this time around?” Black’s eyes narrow. “Tell me honestly, Professor. And while you do, I want you to think about every full moon this past summer that I’ve helped you.”

“I’m not a whore!” Remus shouts, fists clenching white-knuckled. If he feels this mad, he must look it. He presses his finger into Black’s sternum. “I never asked for your help. That — that first night, Mr. Black? You insisted. You made it out to be charity. I never signed a contract to fuck away my debts to you, so don’t talk to me like I’m your fucking drug whore.”

“And still you come back to me,” Black whispers, snide.

“Like you said. I can’t find it anywhere else.”

Black’s smugness fades, curves softening from the corners of his lips. He’s silent and the fire crackles and he shuts his eyes, his hands invitingly circling Remus’ wrists. “Lupin, if you’d just do me the same kindness I do you…”

“Do you hear yourself?” Remus watches Black’s eyes peel open. “The _kindnesses_ we do one another, Mr. Black, they’re far from the same. And I don’t understand why. It doesn’t make sense to me. Do you help me to — what? To have something to hold over my head, as if knowing my secret isn’t enough? To have someone to continue your pathetic, rebellious grade-school trysts with? And why — why _me?_ I don’t — I don’t understand. You paint yourself as the perfect pureblood patriarch, and you keep me, of all people, coming back to you for something that, under the very morals you champion, should have you disowned.”

Remus could continue, but more than anything he wants an answer, and the way Black bites at the inside of his lip as if to physically restrain words leaves him waiting. Black balks, gaze cast to the floor, and then takes a step back from Remus to lift his wand. “ _Expecto Patronum_.” It’s less than a whisper.

Black’s casting is controlled. The silvery Patronus leaks from the tip of his wand in a flourish of swirls and puffs of smoke, and when the blur clears, its corporeal form sits in submission as if awaiting command. Black doesn’t look at it, just flicks his wand again and the wolf, massive, thick-coated, beady-eyed, tramps a circle around the study before leaping and dissolving into mid-air.

Years ago, Remus petitioned Dumbledore to include the Patronus Charm in Defence curriculum. Remus knew there was no chance of requiring it as a NEWT-level skill, its difficulty lying beyond the reach of even seventh years. It would be unjust to penalize students who failed to produce a silver mist, much less the corporeal form. But every year, Remus devotes a week to the Patronus Charm, and every now and then a student will surprise him. Where and how Black learned it is lost on him.

Black sits again. His fingers lace together, wand clutched between, and Remus watches, rooted to the floor, face burning but insides glacial. Remus murmurs, “That’s —”

“Mirzam has always been scared of the dark,” says Black. “Since she realized it was there, a thing to be scared of. It wasn’t an issue at home — candles and charms did the trick — until my wife decided it had been long enough and took away her light. She would lock her in her dark bedroom. Mirzam would scream all night, pound on the door. Apolline would hex her voice away. I began to send her my Patronus to get her through the night. It was a dog. _Padfoot_ , she called it. Or _him_ , as she’d decided. He always came to her without a sound, Apolline hadn’t a clue, and he’d be there, laying beside her in bed if she woke in the middle of the night, but come sunrise, he’d be gone.” Black’s thumb traces the undulating curves in his wand.

“I’ve never been able to refuse her a thing, mind you. Then she went off to Hogwarts, determined to make it without the dog. Her roommates in Hufflepuff didn’t take to her at first. Fault of the legacy, I suppose. She’d end up leaving her lantern on at night and they would taunt her. _How can you be scared of the dark when your surname’s Black?_ ” Black snorts. “She wrote to me saying she couldn’t sleep all of the first week. So I continued to send Padfoot along every night. She could close the bed curtains and he would lay beside her, dim enough that the others wouldn’t notice. She started sleeping again. And until May, I’d done it every night for as long as I could remember. Then she wrote me: _Papa, I’m too old for this. The other girls have all stopped sleeping with their stuffed toys. I’m almost a fourth year now, for Merlin’s sake._ ”

Black reclines. Shadows haunt the hollows of his cheeks. “ _And Papa, Padfoot is different. He’s changed. He’s massive. It doesn’t matter now, but there’s barely room for me in bed with him around. You can stop sending him._ ”

Black says nothing. And Remus certainly doesn’t. He leaves Black on the sofa, moves closer to the fire. The warmth helps soothe his muscles.

“It didn’t help, Professor, that I was left to my own devices for four months,” adds Black, sounding more timid than Remus has ever heard him. “When I realized, I — I was in over my head. I was alone. Apolline was with her siblings, the kids with their cousins. I never got along with the Rosiers, so I was alone. I was —”

“So you became an Animagus.”

“Lupin…”

“We’re not even on a first name basis, and you became an Animagus for me.” Staring into the fire is like watching the sun for too long, yet he can’t look away, doesn’t until he feels a touch graze his shoulder.

“Professor, please. I knew about Potter and Pettigrew, Snape told —”

Remus twists away from him, eyes wide but evading Black like like magnetic poles. “They’re my friends,” Remus says swiftly, holding up his hands in defense. He backs away from Black. His heel catches on the chair he’s sat in what feels like so many times and yet numerically is so few. Remus reels around, heads toward the bookcase door. “They’re my best friends, they knew me better than anyone else, they protected me, defended me. You don’t know me. You don’t fucking know me at all.” Remus shoves at the bookcase, but it doesn’t budge.

“I know more than you think,” Black says calmly from across the room.

“What? That on a given night, there’s a high chance I’m strung out? I don’t think that would surprise anyone,” Remus spits. “Or that I shag men? Unlike you, Mr. Black, I’ve been shagging men for years. Most of their names I can’t remember. Some of them I don’t think I ever knew. During the war, I fucked other werewolves to save my own skin. All of them meant nothing to me. No one I’ve ever slept with has meant…” He falters, digs his fingers into the crevice between the wall and the bookcase to pry it open. Futile. There was Dora, who Remus knows he let slip through his fingers. He should have tried to catch her, but it feels as if he’s mist, pervious, like a sieve, letting everything pass through him, passing through life. His eyes flicker to Black. _For this?_ He chokes out a laugh. Now he knows all that Black had against her was jealousy. “Open the fucking door.”

“Lupin,” says Black, who’s crossed the room on soundless feet like an apparition. Padfoot. His fingers dig into Remus’ arm, into the core of a sore, pulsing muscle. It’s distractingly painful. “You need to calm down.”

“Christ,” whispers Remus, hands still on the bookcase. He’s on fire. He can’t see the moon but he knows she’s watching, tugging with sinister delight on his marionette strings, ready to deform him into a beast for her own entertainment but holding off a night to whet her appetite. “It hurts — I just need —” Ripples of discomfort crawl down Remus’ arms from elbow to wrist. His vision goes spotty, and then, almost manically, Remus seizes Black by his jaw with both hands. “Is this what you want, Mr. Black? Is it?” He kisses Black’s lips, cheek, jawbone and down to his neck, forceful presses that aren’t sensual in the least. “Do you like this?” His tongue drags along the guidelines of straining tendons in Black’s neck. “You do, don’t you, you sick fuck —”

“Lupin!” The cry tears from Black’s throat. “Stop, stop that, stop it.” Black gets a grip on Remus’ hands, holding on as their desperate gazes lock onto each other. Remus hears his own thrumming heart. Black squeezes Remus’ hands, lets him go, palms his wand to open the bookcase.

“I know you’re in pain,” Black murmurs. He edges past Remus like he’s a wild animal who might ravage him any minute. It isn’t far from the truth. Remus follows him into the bedroom.

From the bedside table, Black produces a blue bottle. Remus grabs onto the bed poster for stability. His eyes flick curiously about the room, then decides that Black isn’t stupid enough to keep all his Opaleye in one place. Without looking him in the eye, Black places the bottle in Remus’ hands. “Take it and go.”

Remus stares at the bottle in the palm of his hand. His eyebrows arch. Black waves his wand so the drapes in the bedroom sweep shut and block out the night. “You’re not serious.”

Black laughs sourly. Remus only perceives his joke after Black has begun to talk, after the smile has dropped like a mask taken off. “You’re right, Professor Lupin, as you always are. About my pathetic childhood rebellion. You’ve derailed me. And I’ve let you derail me.” Black perches on the edge of his bed. “This isn’t me. I should have known the moment I cast _that_ — that Patronus that I’m not myself, that I never should have…”

Black stops because Remus uncaps the bottle, taps out a small, glimmering hill of powder onto the back of his shaking hand, snorts it. Black swallows, looks away. “My wife is clever. My children are cleverer. I have another ten odd years left in me — my father died at fifty, his father at forty-four — and I can _not_ leave knowing I was reduced to nothing but a burnt spot, a disgrace to everything I’ve so carefully constructed.”

Remus’ eyes are trained on Black’s profile. He still hurts everywhere, but he hurts with the knowledge that relief is impending. “Mirzam is very clever,” he mutters offhandedly and tucks the bottle into his pocket.

Black’s jaw clenches. “Professor Lupin, I would like it if you left.”

Remus hums. “She has muggleborn friends, did you know? Brightest bunch in her year, her and —”

“Lupin.”

Remus stretches out his arms. His knuckles and elbows crack pleasantly. _I don’t pity him, I don’t pity him. I would be daft to pity him. It would be immoral. I don’t. But if I do? Do I pity the bastard because of the zealotry beaten into him that runs through his black blood, the same as Adhara and Orion, or because he so badly wants to keep a secret that would have him disowned? Or because the poor sod’s in love with me?_ Remus smiles distantly at the absurdity of it all. Syrupy respite drips through him. He moves toward Black unthinkingly. “I just think it’s sad.”

Black glowers at him. “What is?”

“You.”

Black’s lips thin into a line. When Remus takes his chin this time, it’s gentle, and his kiss coaxes Black’s lips to soften up, to seek him out in return, all in a matter of minutes. _It’s because he loves you_ , Remus thinks. _He’ll have you in any way_. Black falls backward against the mattress, dragging Remus atop him. Remus holds himself up on all fours, fingers threading through the silky ends of Black’s hair, licking into his mouth, tasting red wine and lust and the black dog. He can feel his arms start giving out on him. Remus eases onto his elbows, his nose brushing Black’s. He’s a blur of wan and gray in Remus’ vision.

“I think that it’s fair,” mutters Remus. Black’s head tilts, his lips touch Remus’ chin, his thumb pets his cheek. “It’s fair that after tonight, when I leave and don’t come back, we’ll both suffer. And for a long time, at that.” Remus’ feet thud against carpeted floor as he slips from the bed. “Good luck, Mr. Black, weaning yourself off your vice. I’ll be needing it, too. Luck.” Remus draws the bottle from his pocket, sets it lightly upon the dresser with a glassy _clink_. “Take it from me: expect to spend many hours as the black dog. Their heads are clearer than ours.” Without a backward glance, Remus walks to the bookcase door. “When you forget, it will help you to remember that you don’t own me.”


End file.
